Defining Enlightenment (or "Enlightenment vs. Wisdom")

One thing we really need to establish or define is just what "Enlightenment" is and what the word should be referring to. Because without a proper pointer, idea or understanding of the aim of Enlightenment we have no way of knowing if we are on the right track towards it or any way to assess whether Enlightenment is even truly worthwhile or desirable in the first place. There is an irony in that spiritual jargon often use terms such as "unity" or "oneness" or "Absolute" without actually having a unitive or "absolute" teaching or perspective on Enlightenment itself, and any person who happens to believe that various teachings do have unity in perspective is just as deluded as people being stuck in Samsara. Many spiritual schools, traditions, gurus or "masters" are not always on the same page in regards to this matter and instead seem to be trying to one-up each other to appear as if they are higher on the mountain, all the while their followers are unable to reach the high bar set while real, useful, tangible, beautiful and amazing things are actually being achieved in the mundane world by ordinary people who are not even part of the Enlightenment game.

There is a reason I do not use terms like "Enlightenment" in Timeless Education but rather "Wisdom" or "Timelessness" because these are things I know well, and things I know most people can grasp with not too much effort. A person who talks about, preaches or teaches something he or she does not really know is a fool. And a person who talks about, preaches or teaches something he or she know most people will have difficulty achieving or understanding, is mostly wasting their time teaching or creating a "spiritual" separation from people with little or no functional purpose for the masses.

From the beginning I wanted a new terminology and language precisely because I did not want people to be confused or differ too much in their understanding of what we are talking about in Timeless Education. I knew that words or terms like "spirituality," "ego," "self-annihilation," "Enlightenment," etc, would mean something different to different people, and if I attempted to correct them and explain my interpretation people might simply argue that they or teacher x has a different interpretation they stand by. Or, they might change their mind to my perspective, but then another person would just come along that I need to convince again because everyone starts out being influenced by the wrong interpretations. This was also the reason I felt the need to create my own typology, because trying to improve a typology or anything that already exists and has established itself in the mind of others is going to be ridiculously difficult to maintain and constantly clarify to people. This is why you need to let the old die and constantly create something new because it is a law of nature that the new can only emerge and grow from the corpse or ruin of the old. If I can only salvage what's useful or good about Enlightenment by replacing it with new terms or demolishing Enlightenment then so be it.

This is why I prefer to talk about "essentialness," "partiality," and "Timeless Man" instead and why I actually dislike a lot of the more familiar jargon. Unfortunately, in order to make people interested in something new, or to even find the material, I had to often resort to more common terms like "spirituality" or "ego" while commenting on or communicating with people. However, as more and more people find my material, I find it more and more important to stress the new terminology and leave older terms behind. But before doing so, we need to examine the relation between the ideas in Timeless Education and the ideas of "Spirituality" and "Enlightenment" by defining the latter.

I shall start from a very simple point, which is my definitions of these terms. I define "Spirituality" as Essentialness, and I define "Enlightenment" as Self-Knowledge (especially awareness of awareness or receptive "No-Self" awareness). The relation between "Spirituality" and "Enlightenment" is thus obvious, since understanding or discovering ourselves is essential and what we have to go on in terms of finding out our meaning, purpose, joy, peace, and so forth. Short of this we can only "take orders" and hope an external source knows what's best for us, which is an alternative ripe for potential manipulation, exploitation and abuse.

But this is all in the realm of "Being" (where the conclusion tends to be a perspective of "Non-Being" in regards to one's Self) which is essentially passive (without motion) and contrasts sharply with a world of (or seeming world of) activity and also a concern for survival. And no satisfying answer has been given to the question of "Doing." Let us contemplate for a moment the classic Zen Kōan: "Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water." What this quote suggests, and I would say correctly gets at, is that Enlightenment is a change in one's internal Being (attitude, mentality, understanding) that allows one to appreciate and perform in the world (the realm of Doing) in a more functional and joyable way than before, where whatever is happening or what one does is a reward in itself rather than being done with the aim of some specific future reward or attachment. Also, "No-Self" is an insight and does not necessarily equal other qualities of "development" such as self-control even though the two exist in a mutual supportive role.

However, to achieve this liberated internal state of Non-Being one is dependent on "Doing" whether it be through learning, practice, concentration, relaxation, finding a guide, and not be dying of starvation, cold, violence or thirst. Furthermore, once the "state" or Being (Non-Being) is achieved, the person is left without orientation in regards to what to do in a world with many choices. This orientation is further complicated by the often required cessation of desires or "ego" in order to 'have joy in everything' and leaves the person a potential "desireless automaton" ready to be pushed around and directed by other people's will or the pressures of their surroundings without complaint. It is difficult to reconcile the extinguishing of desires with any activity at all, and it is similarly difficult to reconcile impartial duty with ethics and morality.

Also, achieving Non-Being or Enlightenment in this way tells you nothing about the world or its hidden laws. At best it tells you that consciousness is fundamental and that matter is an effect or not-quite-what-you-think while also providing you with the basics of human psychology to navigate the world. But I find even the psychology of Buddhist doctrines to be incomplete or flawed when it comes to lower consciousness human psychology.

I say this as a person who has actually achieved quite a large measure of self-annihilation and capacity to let things be and find joy without effort. If this is Enlightenment then it also makes sense that I do now what I did before Enlightenment. And what did I do before Enlightenment? I thought about things, had questions regarding my purpose or value in life, and wondered what I should be doing since I didn't have a lot of worldly desires to begin with. It thus equally makes sense to rephrase the Zen Kōan into: "Before enlightenment; do philosophy, entertain ideas what to do in life. After enlightenment; do philosophy, entertain ideas what to do in life." Since Being is entirely in the realm of Non-Doing, any kind of Doing (including thinking or contemplation) is thus equally valid after Enlightenment as before Enlightenment. Thus nothing anyone does can truly be criticized.

Because of this, I have made Timeless Education to be a teaching about something more than merely Enlightenment, focusing also on the "lower" dimensions of Doing and Surviving, perhaps even improving upon the very idea of Enlightenment in the process. After all, I need something to do. And from the Enlightened perspective, I can not be faulted for this. Nor can I be improved on this. In fact, I am expected to do it and take joy in it, enjoying it for its own sake.

However, there are other interpretations of Enlightenment. These are interpretations I don't always understand, partly because they make no sense or seem to be almost impossible to achieve, and partly because they are being peddled by people who themselves admit they have yet to reach Enlightenment (big surprise!). But there are a few principles one can employ in order to assess what is being said by certain gurus or defenders and peddlers of these interpretations. In fact, Timeless Education was developed as a set of parameters or "timeless principles" that could deal with precisely this issue of "wisdom" in interpretation or orientation. Because ultimately we are not simply looking for what is the true interpretation of the term "Enlightenment." We also want to know if it is wise, useful, sensible, or even achievable. Ancient people may have practiced and come up with all sorts of things, but just because such a thing have become revered or gained an impressive mythology around itself does not necessarily mean that it is something good. Ancient people were just as fallible, superstitious, and moronic as many modern minds are today, and that goes especially for those who constitute the social elites and reclusive monks who are often divorced from the real world most people have to deal with in their place.

Another reason timeless principles are useful is because the question of Enlightenment is not always a question of interpreting the term but instead confrontation with something else in its place or attempts to go further or making claims about a particular experience that people or gurus appeal to rather than traditional conceptions of Enlightenment. Of course, there is usually an attempt to tie in these experiences with the traditional language of spirituality or religion which still makes the question of interpretation relevant. Interpretation is a form of categorization or attempt at identification of what sort of experience it is someone has had and its relation to other types of experiences. It is for this reason I regard categorization and interpretation as inseparable from development and Wisdom, while rejection of categorization or interpretation from the view that they belong to the lower or "unenlightened" mind in fact fails to be wholistic and thus not desirable even if that would happen to be the real meaning of Enlightenment.

My stance on Enlightenment and the real experience of it is a minimization of one's self-concept due to the impossibility of defining the Self, as well as the minimization of one's beliefs since preconceived notions and assumptions tend to create delusions, rigidity and make it more difficult to actually perceive or engage with what is really and spontaneously arising in front of you (inside and outside) and that this is the "void," self-annihilation, or "No-Self" spoken of in traditions. In other words, Enlightenment is something relatively simple, achievable, and consistent with the traditional terminology taken in their most "mundane" form. It is my experience that if something can be interpreted in a more mundane way, it probably should be (even though this isn't exactly mundane, but it will be perceived as that by people who expect more out of Enlightenment). Because, as we will discover, blowing the interpretation (or experience) of something out of proportion will either lead to inconsistency, poor philosophy, incompatibility with many other traditional terms, or not being consistent with timeless principles (and is thus not Wisdom even if it happens to be true or possible).

The timeless principles can be summarized as follows:

1. Interconnection.

2. Contrast.

3. Ceaseless change, no final state.

4. Analogy, relationship, energy-exchange.

5. Emphasis on Timeless Principles and Self-Knowledge.

6. Non-Attached awareness.

7. Wisdom Compass, epistemology, transmission competence.

8. Unconditional Love as manifestation of Will.

9. Self-Expression and Authenticity.

10. Non-Avoidance, engagement (because if another condition is preferable, why is that not our natural situation or more easily attainable?)

Out of all of these 10 principles (which you can read more about here), perhaps the most important and useful one as regards to this subject is the last principle. Although I have put it last on this list, it was actually the first principle for evaluating wisdom that I followed, long before being interested in "spiritual" stuff or trying to create a philosophical system.

Let us start with an example: self-annihilation or escaping the Wheel of Samsara. In my interpretation this refers to the minimization of the self-concept and thus of less identification with the temporal, hence the person is liberated in "attitude" (for lack of a better term) and therefore does not cling to things or states it will inevitably lose. Although it is the common condition to be identified, it is also not too difficult to drop one's identification. It is simply a way to adapt to reality, in many ways a very easy to grasp and logical reality (and entirely believable that ancient people would come up with such a concept), and can also simply be regarded as one attitude among a natural diversity of attitudes, although more beneficial. Thus this view is compatible with the principle of Non-Avoidance or engagement.

However, as we all know, there is another interpretation of self-annihilation that suggests an escape from the reality we are in, also interpreted as putting an end to "the cycle of reincarnations." In my interpretation (and which I think is the true interpretation) the Wheel of Samsara or "cycle of reincarnation" refers to the cycle of psychological wandering or incarnation of identifications that happens in a mind lacking a clear centre to stand on. Not referring to anything beyond a particular lifetime. The reason why this is my interpretation is because 1) it is known to be a valid one, 2) it is practical and doable, and 3) it is consistent with the principle of Non-Avoidance (or Non-Escape if you prefer) while the literal interpretation of wanting to disappear from the Earth and Universe through "self-annihilation" is not consistent with the principle of Non-Avoidance and also does not seem to be doable (or at least not achievable in a simple and natural way) and with no tangible results existing outside of the realm of myth and speculation that some Enlightened Buddhas might have achieved it.

The philosphy of "Non-Escape" (a term made up by me) is something like this: The condition or world we are in, even if ultimately an illusion or even created inside a computer, is intrinsically meaningful and exists for a reason; because, assuming there is something like God or an infinite intelligence, naturally what this God or intelligence has created would be the most meaningful and interesting one possible that could be created, or it would have created something else. Trying to escape it would simply be a rejection of this intrinsic meaning for something that is actually less meaningful, and would be more likely to suggest an error or dysfunction in the program than actually being driven by and appreciating the designed purpose. Of course, this view makes less sense in a "non-spiritual" materialistic worldview. But materialists are also not making fancy statements about Enlightenment or trying to escape reincarnation, which they don't believe in.

Another common interpretation is the idea that we are God or the Universe trying to understand itself. I'm not sure what the precise origin of this idea is but very likely it stems from Hindu concepts, perhaps even a specific school (I will use the term 'Hinduism' for the outside form and collection of schools and concepts in India while reserving the term 'Sanatana Dharma' for the original primordial core that remains to be properly identified). The problem with this idea is that it seems to lack the perspective of eternity; suggesting a goal the Universe or God has that it either should already have achieved by now or will achieve in the future, thus posing yet another question this view fails to answer: what comes after God finally understands itself through us and comes together? Eternity doesn't stop once the Universe or God knows what it is. The natural conclusion that tends to follow is that God simply decides to forget itself again, splitting up into many pieces so as to start the cycle all over again and repeat this process eternally. This could be the case, and would be consistent with Non-Escape, but is also therefore unnecessary as a philosophical viewpoint when it would make more sense for a God to simply want stimulating experiences and surprises, similar to how we use our creativity to create drama or engage in various games of risk and reward rather than simply aiming to understand itself over and over. The purpose of understanding has a goal while the purpose of experience may go on forever. Hence it makes more sense for the latter to be the eternal purpose.

Related to these ideas of the nature of God and the Universe is the interpretation or assumption that Enlightenment is an experience or achievement that will make you understand all of existence, the mind of God, the laws of the Universe, past and future events, etc, whatever you can think of. However, given how many of these Enlightened "Buddhas" or gurus (existing now or in the past) make for inadequate psychologists, scientists or even philosophers, with very little cultural achievement in the area of knowledge, invention or medicine, I see no reason to believe Enlightenment has anything to do with knowledge. If it did we should be able to find among self-realized gurus useful and genius science beyond the minds of Tesla or Einstein, and we don't. It is in some way understandable why this interpretation would arise though, since the word "enlightenment" implies a powerful insight or understanding of some kind. But everything points to this insight merely being that we are not the temporal or anything that can be perceived, and instead our true nature or core lies beyond time and space.

It is important to understand that ideas about the "mind of God" and the purpose of existence is philosophy and not a realization that comes with Enlightenment experience. Enlightenment experience tells you nothing except who you are (or rather who/what you are not). Deductions that the world is "illusory" can be made from things like quantum physics, psychedelic exploration, or simple observation that everything changes with time. But none of these insights are "Enlightenment experience" because if they were then it seems Enlightenment isn't even necessary to reach such a conclusion. Philosophy and even science is entirely adequate, or arguably the same thing.

And here we reach two more conceptions of Enlightenment that needs to be addressed, that of "nothing is real" and, often related to that, "in the Enlightened state anything is possible." This is the realm of magical powers, supernatural abilities, and recreating the world according to your own wishes and fancy. Obviously, in order to break the laws of reality you need to invalidate and deny them as being real, and this seems to align with Eastern conceptions of the world being illusory (even though an "illusion" could also simply mean the distortion of a thing rather than the thing not existing at all). Here, any conception of "laws" or acceptance of reality is considered "materialistic" and spirituality seems to reside only in the realm of superhuman abilities and achieving godhood. From a more grounded point of view this reeks of hubris, ego, and avoidant life-denial (or life-narrowing) rather than humility, self-annihilation, and non-avoidant life-affirmation. Ideas such as the Law of Attraction also belongs here, even though they don't speak of Enlightenment per se.

The source for this seems to be a hodgepodge of ideas ranging from occult magic to the miracles of Jesus to the concept of Maya in Advaita Vedanta. There is, however, no reason to interpret the miracles of Jesus literally and if taken as such the Bible would not be compatible with Eastern ideas of Enlightenment anyhow. Since nobody has actually been confirmed to achieve such a state of "superhuman Enlightenment" we are naturally left in the realm of speculation and interpretation, yet people who hold on to this view will defend it as if it was something new, novel, and game changing that requires an open mind. Suckers have been attracted to this idea for centuries.

This is also related to the idea of going "deeper" than anything before. A person once asked me in the comment section of a video: "Have you considered the possibility that Leo [Gura] has gone so deep, and his teaching are way more advanced than what you can comprehend? After all, he said that he has accessed rare levels of consciousness that [mystics] haven't reached. More advanced than some spiritual traditions, so it shouldn't be a surprise that you can't make sense of it from your level"

To which my answer was:

"There can be one aim with authentic spirituality and one aim only, and that is open receptivity to direct experience and awareness of your direct experience. Any convoluted add-on, acquiring fantastic powers, exploring other dimensions, making reality vanish, talking to other-dimension creatures, or attempting to control or interfere with your experience and reality is going in the wrong direction and will only support dissatisfaction with what's in front of you – creating an endless distraction and focus on becoming rather than on being. Becoming (striving) can never be as timeless as being, especially since implicit in striving is distrust in mere being (that which is). By attempting to go "higher" or "deeper" he is just making a parody of spirituality that makes it more difficult for people to recognize and accomplish the real goal of spirituality. I am not the least bit impressed by Leo even if what he said was true. Just because something is "possible" doesn't mean it is good for you. Spirituality is about what's authentic and essential, not about what's possible by jumping ahead into some next stage in Darwinian evolution.

Chasing deeper understanding of reality ceases to be higher consciousness if the conclusion arrived at isn't Being because striving is always at a lower state than mere experiencing, because true experiencing doesn't reject things and instead fills you with substance and a sense of abundance. Can't you see that Leo's constant seeking for more and deeper has led to an outright rejection of both reality and experience as pure illusion to be distrustful of? Is this wisdom or just thirst for knowledge? Spirituality is wisdom before anything else, not simply acquiring knowledge of existential mechanisms. This is why it is said that young children are wiser than most adults and the best candidates to get into "heaven."

If Leo wants to be some kind of psychedelic explorer, that's fine. But ask yourself if that's the point of wisdom and the best way to live? Is an animal a fool for not figuring out it is God? What's wrong with simply being a biological creature? To become at peace with this is actually a very high state of consciousness. Higher states are simple, not complex. And if you don't want to take my word on that, then at least contemplate why a higher state couldn't be simple? Remember, it is about wisdom, not knowledge."

My response was slightly rushed and could've been polished or improved, but I cannot devote as much time to answering comments on Youtube as when explaining my position in a book or article like this. But by reading it in the context of this article it should be easier to understand what I tried to get at and is an example of what kind of claims you may need to confront.

Sometimes there is an appeal to psychedelic experience, but psychedelic experience do not result in powers or permanent states and we have reason to question their objective value since they appear to have a different effect on different subjective minds. Not to mention that psychedelics themselves exist in the realm of Maya or illusion so one wonders how substance or chemicals made out of illusion can liberate from illusion?

Our 10 timeless principles are very useful here, since they transcend time and circumstance and thus are capable of going beyond "possibilities" or endless "open mind" arguments and aim straight at the heart of wisdom. Hence why the argument should be made, were I to be wrong about my interpretation of Enlightenment, that Wisdom simply transcends Enlightenment. Different principles are more useful when evaluating some interpretations of Enlightenment than others. Here I will focus on the first three:

1. Interconnection.

The first timeless principle is interconnection. This is the essence of a word like "unity" or "oneness." Without two or more different parts working in tandem there can be no unity or oneness. To experience or suggest that Enlightenment is awareness that nothing exists or that only one thing (God) exists is thus not unity or oneness because it renders such terms meaningless. One thing existing is not oneness (the quality of several things making up a whole), it's just one. Neither is it a wholistic worldview. It is merely reduction until you get to one thing or nothing, and since this is not compatible with traditional terms such as unity it must either constitute an error in interpretation, a trivial experience that misses the target, or something "going beyond Enlightenment." If it is the latter then it makes no sense to still call it Enlightenment. You need to come up with a new term to illustrate the new or "deeper" concept and argue for its merit (and good luck with that).

2. Contrast.

For experience to occur, the element of contrast is necessary. If nothing exists or only one thing exists there can be no experience. Indeed some Advaita teachers says the Absolute is prior to awareness and experience, which would mean that no awareness or experience of the Absolute is possible (and also that no knowledge of it is possible beyond philosophy). And if experience is to be regarded as something bad to be escaped, that even spiritual experience is at the level of illusion (since it is still experience), then you need to argue for the merits of that and why you couldn't be equally "realized" by simply an act of suicide or lobotomy.

3. Ceaseless change, no final state.

Going beyond change into a final permanent state or literal annihilation means stagnation and boredom or death. If this is desirable you need to explain why even the gods would not get bored outside of our world, or argue for the merit of non-existence or non-experience. In a similar way, supernatural abilities and god-like control creates predictability even though it might sound appealing and fun at first, and predictability is known to lead to a lack of excitement and boredom. When you can have anything you want it is like using a cheat code for a video game. It ruins the intended meaning of the game and why people like games and dramatized entertainment.

The focus on reality being an illusion is often reductionist in that the conversation often misses that there are many different degrees to an illusion. There is the illusion of solidity in matter which, according to quantum physics, contain mostly empty space. Then there is the illusion of permanence in things when not attentive to the fact that all things deteriorate or change with time. In addition to this there can be mental illusions about the space-time illusions based on preconceived notions or ideas one carries in the mind. When ancient doctrines spoke of the world of illusion, to which of these illusions did they refer? Advaita Vedanta seem to recognize an absolute reality (Brahman), an empirical and pragmatical reality, and an unreality based on imagination. However, there is clearly no escaping the empirical and pragmatical reality and so the point of absolute reality should be to protect one's mind from falling into subjective imagination as one traverse and orient oneself in the empirical and pragmatical world.

Any idea about our space-time level existence being some kind of mistake or error to be removed is simply dumb and philosophically poor, impossible to experience (since experience is not possible outside of a world of experience), and I don't care if such ideas come from actual spiritual teachers, Indian gurus, or some traditional doctrine. It is profoundly passive, nihilistic, off-putting to the majority, yawn-inducing, and, yes non-materialistic but also non-spiritual, and anyone who argues for it is not entitled to make a claim for a single word, definition, expression or experience (including the term "spirituality") since all this belongs to the realm of life and existence and not to the non-realm of the nothing-Absolute. The universe may be a dream or illusion but the Absolute is not even that. One would think the argument that something is an illusion would be intended to arouse the desire for something real and non-illusory, but no, some of these Advaita guru types want you to become interested in something even less real than the illusion. Make you interested in nothing.

It's the equivalent of someone turning off the TV while your are watching a movie or playing a video game with your buddies and says, "Hey, did you know that actually what's in the TV isn't real? You can turn it off and it all goes away. See!" Or, "Why are you discussing the plot? It's not real!" Yes, we know. We don't care. We want to keep playing or engage with the make-belief. That's why it was created.

Re-interpreting the "void" or nothingness as simply referring to the ultimate self-concept, however, allows the experience of life to pour through us fully without blockages or avoidances, giving a sense of richness or abundance to life, and this resolves the paradox of life-affirmation and nothingness-centredness neatly and beautifully in a way that is graspable and doable for most people. Whether this is actually called Enlightenment or not I don't care, because I don't care about words, only what is meant by them.

I also talk about what I myself have experienced or figured out, because why should I talk about or preach something else? I have not personally verified that quantum physics is even real, nor do I know how any of the scientists arrived at their conclusions through their complex mathematics and experiments. And neither do most other people even though they may point to quantum this and quantum that because they are hypnotized by cultural assumptions. That's why I don't teach quantum mechanics or talk about "Quantum Philosophy" because that stuff is not timeless. Only the knowledge or understanding that can be arrived at without era-specific-science is timeless.

How do you know that the world is an illusion? How do you know anything? How do you explain what you know to someone who don't know anything? If nobody had ever mentioned that the world is an illusion, would you even talk in that way? Is that the real you talking?

The reason I refer to the world as an unchanging process or perpetual change instead of being "illusory" is because that is something I can verify for myself and also explain to other people in a simple and convincing way, allowing them to easily verify it as well. And that is enough to point out the folly of material attachment and instead find solid ground in our higher unchanging core or "soul" that is aware of awareness (another thing that can be verified through quiet contemplation and meditation). And yet some people will claim I am actually a "materialist" until I renounce existence itself or something.

Not only is that a misuse of the term "materialistic" that runs the risk of giving most people an erroneous impression of what I am about (and thus potentially choose to avoid Timeless Education out of misinformed prejudice) but it is also a claim that assumes that I am supposed to know about something of which I have no experience or knowledge. And by making random statements, often parroting some text or teacher, these people are not exactly enlightening me. If you are being a parrot then I think it is about time you become enlightened enough to understand that you are being a parrot, and then come back when you know what you are talking about, are sure you are able to convey it to people, and also are capable of paying attention to what I am saying so that you can properly address it and engage with me at the level I am at. Not high from above or poorly from below. But obviously people are not going to bother improving their communication skills or even their awareness and critical thinking if reality is just a "dream" anyway and their only focus is to become one with everything through their "feelings."

The child is pure and often feels at one with things, not recognizing the same boundaries that adults do. But the child can also not survive without the help of "material-minded" providers. And frequently I feel that I am in the role of a parent trying to provide something that is of use in life to immature seekers merely citing teachers or doctrines. Compare my approach with the useless answer Stephen Wolinsky gave to the question: "Ok, I accept this is All an Illusion. How is this going to help me in my life and relationships?"

Stephen Wolinsky:
"Believing that upon realization, and getting that it is all an illusion, that somehow it's going to help you in your life or your relationships, is a complete distortion of spirituality. Spirituality is about finding out who you are. ... Yes, it's all an illusion, but what isn't included is [that] the knower of the illusion, the awarer of the illusion, the witness of the illusion, is part of the illusion. ... If you can perceive it or conceive it, it's not you, therefore discard it. The significance of that is not only [can I] perceive and conceive this physical universe or my relationships or my health or whatever it is. I can [also] perceive and conceive the knower, the awarer – I can be aware of being aware – I can be conscious of consciousness. The witness? I can know or know about the witness. Therefore all of them are part of the illusion. Part of the problem is that we assume that somehow if I realize and find out who I am, I'll be able to be more, do more, have more, create more... I'll be omniscient, I'll always pick the right stock, I'll always pick the right relationships, I'll never make a mistake, I'll always be kind, loving and all of these types of things. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other. It's All an illusion."

Gee, I guess that clears things up then.

Notice that what he says has absolutely no value or relation to life whatsoever. This is not wholism or unity or oneness or interconnection. It is actually a separation. If "one has absolutely nothing to do with the other" then it (spirituality) has nothing to do with life. If it has nothing to do with life then it can only have to do with non-existence, separation, or death. It is no wonder a lot of Christians take the stand that these religions are "demonic." I would certainly not teach this stuff to my kids. Also note how the question isn't even about becoming successful in life, even though he partly answered as if it was. It is simply asking for a basic usefulness or even a point to it. The answer is clearly that there is no point. Things that have a point are part of the illusion.

This is why we need to be open-minded or critical enough to entertain the idea that perhaps Enlightenment is actually not something constructive or even good in many cases like this, assuming Mr. Wolinksky or Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (who he often quotes) wouldn't simply say that Enlightenment is also part of the illusion, which would not surprise me. My argument is thus that, to the extent that Enlightenment is actually defined the same as Timeless Education, it is something positive and the two are compatible as aims. But if Timeless Education and Enlightenment are different, then it is Enlightenment that is to be discarded.

The nature of "partiality"

In following the problem of conflicts, suffering and human dysfunctionality (or "evil" if you prefer), I often track such phenomena back to that principle of Ultimate Reality or Timelessness I refer to as "Partiality" or "Polarity" ("+" and "-" inherent in reality, necessary for motion). People following Timeless Education might be most familiar with this concept through the idea of partial or polarized human types in Bias psychology. However, partiality as a root cause of human conflicts and problems involves a lot more than a difference in various human types clashing with each other.

A huge part of human partiality or bias is also that reality I refer to as "Masked Man" (or Cultural/Hypnotized Man) that involves rigid habits and unquestioned assumptions conditioned by the environment or by a subculture. Thus partiality entails both a conflict between different types and a conflict between different cultures or conditionings, as well as the conflict between a type expressing more of his or her nature and a person mostly expressing or embodying the habits of a culture or idea. Another aspect of partiality is that which involves different, conflicting states of consciousness. There are some traits that tend to be universal to lower consciousness, regardless of psychological type or environment, such as being drawn to mockery and the surface of things when engaged in conflict, as well as giving up reason, fairness and personal responsibility in order to retain social order, safety and familiarity.

These are the partiality of the external analyzed in conflict or problems. There is also the internal partiality or polarizations within the individual going on at the same time. The confusion whether one is primarily a mind or primarily a body, and a partiality towards the one or the other without a proper unity, constitutes one such polarity. Whether one is partial towards one's own internal preferences or towards the expectations of the external environment is another factor. A third kind of polarity exists between 3 different energies or psychosis-hylomorphisms in one's energy-configuration, along with a polarity within each energy individually where the auxiliary energies may be partial and assist in the expression of a particular side of this energy.

Finally, there is one more polarization to consider, which is that of consciousness and unconsciousness; of attentive discernment or lazy mental habits. To say that one can be partial towards either consciousness or unconsciousness is only partly accurate, however, since a lot of the time people are kept unconscious through circumstance by no fault of their own, and don't know the taste of true conscious experience. But there still remains an element of consciousness that people should be able to have more of a choice in, even without the right teaching, when a person encounters the friction between different systems of belief and can, almost every day, witness the clash of cultures and ideologies. When such friction is present, especially in young people, one would expect a desire for discernment and truth to arise in their consciousness (in order to solve problems). This is, after all, the "alarm clock" of reality.

However, it seems that this is where personal preference (such as expectations, sense of loyalty or identity, psychological "type" or socio-economic circumstance) kicks in and partializes the desire for discernment and truth into a disingenuous or deceptive focus of attention and manipulation. Because of this it is important to remember that the problem or issue of "partiality" involves a somewhat complex interplay of circumstance, history, conditioning, cultural temptations, physical health, psychosis-hylomorphism (psychological type), and level of consciousness. This is why I have categorized self-knowledge (or the complete range of the essential understanding of partiality) into the following categories (excluding the "impartial" Timeless Man) : "Unfree Man," "Masked Man," "Biological Man," "Polarized Man" (a.k.a. "Natural Man") and "Temporary Man."

Partiality, in its expression, not only desires to fight against an "opposite" but more generally to simply convert others to itself. A big part of partiality involves the projected belief that everyone (or at least the majority) would enjoy or benefit from its preferences and in fact does not really believe that people or circumstances make up a big difference. This is where partiality disguised as "good intentions" come into the picture. And whenever supposed differences are pointed out they tend to be mostly directed towards something like biological or social determinism rather than level of consciousness.

Forcing people into one or another kind of partiality tends to be people's idea of unity, utopia and development. But it is a false unity ultimately enforced through repression, propaganda, ridicule, threats, superficiality, self-abandonment, and limiting the dissemination of information and freedom of expression to maintain a minimal amount of questioning. In other words, maintaining a low level of awareness or pushing it down. This is how we know that partiality is an aspect of lower consciousness, and that the stronger the partiality or bias the lower the consciousness. Furthermore, partiality (because it was not consciously chosen) cannot be said to have true agency or creativity.

If follows then that the more impartiality (or Non-Attachment) a person cultivates, the higher the possibility of consciousness (and "Omni-Appreciation") as well as agency and creativity. Therefore the development we are aiming for with Timeless Education must not be confused with just one more form of the usual blind partiality, even though it can be thought of as a higher form of partiality properly organized in relation to the whole. It is the study of how things function in connection, how to prevent dysfunctionality, and make the beneficial case for conscious impartiality – including the surprising rewards, self-discovery and satisfaction this results in and which the partial mind is futilely seeking and striving for in specific, limiting and temporal conditions.

But we must not forget to retain a certain appreciation for the natural partiality our bioenergetic dimension possesses, otherwise we are still not truly impartial and objective. Partiality in nature fulfills a necessary and functional role, especially when it goes along with consciousness. But conditioned, provoked or unconscious partiality in complex life-forms such as human beings leads to dysfunctionality and suffering. With everything ultimately being partial (as a necessary component of the configuration of reality) the final polarity ends in consciousness and unconsciousness; or source and its effect. Do you want to understand the source and be closer to it in action, or just be another one of its accidental effects?

Freedom of speech

In my book Tidlös utbildning: en introduktion (2016), I defended freedom of speech as one of the best signs of a healthy society and that "the more restrictions that are introduced the more the society deviates from wisdom" (page 140). Since then, however, I have come across two arguments against total freedom of speech that made me want to reflect on whether I may have formulated a flawed argument for the freedom of speech.

The first counter-argument or flaw in the freedom of speech is that not everyone has the same prerequisites for reaching out with their message, need, or opinion. Social groups that are in the majority and people with the largest technological platforms will persuade and mesmerize others; not through the best arguments but mainly by "screaming the loudest" and being the most visible. Thus the belief that the "marketplace of ideas" will let the best arguments win through their own merit has forgotten to take this into account.

The other counter-argument is that freedom of expression also leads to a lack of restriction or filter being placed on advertising, gossip, spam, frivolity, scams, rumors, and poorly informed opinions that in many cases run the risk of drowning out more useful, healthy and essential information.

Since I agree with these flaws in freedom of speech, I felt compelled to go back and read what I wrote in my own assessment of freedom of speech in the book. I was wondering if I might have reached an erroneous conclusion or not used the timeless parameters correctly.

Fortunately, what I wrote is something I still largely stand behind. My main point in the evaluation was that freedom of speech does not work without Timeless Education with its practice of non-identification and development. I could definitely have gone into more detail on the subject, but the text is not at all as flawed as I feared it would be. On the contrary, I do not defend freedom of speech as much as I point out that it needs a complement in the form of the right education and a wisdom-compass, otherwise people cannot handle such an ideal. Translated quote from the book:

"Freedom of speech also involves a responsibility to be able to take counter-reactions, otherwise there is always the choice to keep quiet. No one can expect [there to be] accepting people who can take responsibility for either freedom of speech or anything else until they have done the work required to develop themselves."

One question that is still relevant, however, is how the right teaching and information, whether we talk about Timeless Education or something similar, can reach people if it is not conveyed by the largest platforms or if it drowns in a sea of trivial, banal and misleading information? In a way, the whole book is about this problem, especially the first two chapters, so there was no need to repeat this. That too much information and opinions are a problem for wisdom is definitely not something I forgot to pay attention to or ponder. That people with the most influence have more power in terms of information is also related to this, and pretty obvious, even though I did not mention this directly.

It was for this very reason that I chose to express a warning in the text, where I stated that crimes against the understanding of timeless truth through prohibition, neglect or distortion of Timeless Education will not be forgiven (by reality). Nothing works without it. Not politics, not religion, not school, not rule of law, not revolution, and not freedom of speech. And to make sure that Timeless Education gets the space it needs for a healthier world with healthier people, I would actually prioritize it over total freedom of speech. This does not pose that much of a risk for what is most essential in freedom of speech, since freedom of speech is largely included in Timeless Education. But the necessary respect needed for the principles of Ultimate Reality in a healthy society may require a limiting or questioning of freedom of speech in its current form. But if we are to apply any kind of restriction and punishment, it must be constructive and reasonable. Banning calls for violence is already a reasonable limitation.

How to reach people with wisdom has always been a challenge. If you come on too strongly, wisdom easily becomes fanatical religion with oppression of opinions, and if you create a mystique around wisdom to make it attractive by hiding it in monasteries or secret societies, it easily becomes elitist or crushed by other ideals that become totalitarian in its place.

True freedom of speech belongs to a higher state. The majority of people do not really want freedom of speech. Ordinary people are biased, passionate and prone to group pressure. And at the same time freedom of speech is something attractive that can support the demands and desires of individuals or groups until these are reached and then inevitably limits the same freedom of speech with precisely these demands and desires. Such is the result of freedom of speech without timeless wisdom.

But if we already consider freedom of speech to be an ideal in our Western culture, then the answer to how we should get people to notice Timeless Education lies precisely in pointing out that our current ideal of freedom of speech needs this kind of wisdom as a complement in order to function and be realistic. Saying that true freedom of speech needs Timeless Education, or wisdom, otherwise it is impossible, could provide us with an effective rhetoric that is easy to remember and at the same time can generate interest in Timeless Education.

What is religion?

What is religion? Religion is near identical with culture, a philosophy of life and attitude pattern based on insights that derive from metaphysics. And since metaphysics was said to be the first philosophy according to Aristotle, and Greek philosophy was something like a reformulation of religion into a new term, we can say that religion, philosophy and metaphysics not only are connected, but that in many ways they are merely different terms for what originally was the same thing.

I say "originally" because all these terms or concepts have diverged from one another and deviated from their origin, and not in a good way. The more division that happens, the more you can expect the concepts to be taken and understood erroneously. That everything is connected and founded on recurrence, reflections and correspondences is a fundamental law, and the true meaning behind the expression "all is one" or "all is in one, and one is in all", etc.

The word "religion" originates in the Latin word religio, the origin of which has been speculated to be "reconnect" or "reconnecting," which has the implication of reconnecting to a particular source or origin.

Therefore we must distinguish what religion originates from – what it was in its essence – and what it later became in various cultures or in the psyche of the individual person. In other words, what is of interest here is what the term religion should refer to, not necessarily what it is considered to be among the masses. When different individuals and cultures use the same word but mean different things, then it becomes a problem. Thus it is often necessary to either clearly define words and terms before they are discussed, or invent a new word or term that is less likely to be misinterpreted.

In Timeless Education I attempt to do a bit of both. In part, I try to analyze, explain and clarify old terms in videos and texts such as this one. And partly, I invent and reformulate old terms into new ones as part of a new teaching. I could say that the term "timeless education" has the same meaning as the term "religion." But then people would just say, "Oh, so timeless education is just religion..." But no, it's not religion as people understand it because most people do not know what I mean by religion. You do not know what religion really is, or what it was meant to be. Almost nobody does. Timeless Education also has the same meaning as philosophy, psychoanalysis, science, education, politics, etc. And normally people do not get all this in a single package, properly developed. Timeless Education is universal religion free of all nonsense. It is "essential culture."

I could make it very easy for myself here and simply say: "Religion is not what you think it is. Real religion is the same as Timeless Education. So if you want to know what real religion is, go and read up on Timeless Education." And, obviously, I think you should do that. But I want to elaborate a bit more on religion and explain certain things, since people often want arguments and support for this kind of assertion.

It is often said that all religions are fundamentally the same, with the same message, and containing the same truths. But this is an incompetent way of expressing it, a lazy-minded repetition of something people have heard. And as a result, the counter arguments are often stronger. It is more precise to say that all religions derive from the same source, that they were originally meant to be the same, that they should be the same, but that they, through misinterpretations, human partiality and incompetence have over time deviated both from their original form and from each other. So, no, today's religions are not the same. And because of that, the majority of them can not be called real religions. They are empty shells and rituals that long ago died and have lost their essence.

Ancient enlightened people knew and accepted that all religions sooner or later must die, to be updated and give way to a new formulation of timeless wisdom that reconnected to the source. I brought this up in my text on Norse mythology and Ragnarok. That the gods fall during Ragnarok is partly a metaphor for the coming death of the old religious system. That is why antiquity had so many different religions with similar gods and systems.

Same thing with the monotheistic religions. Christianity and Islam were both reformulations of Judaism. Christianity attempted to clarify that the scriptures should not be taken literally by, among other things, raising the point that "the letter kills but the spirit gives life." Islam attempted to clarify that all religions originally had been valid by saying that all people have had their own prophet. But even these two religions died very early. In their true essence, they only lasted probably for about a 100 years, tops. So the lifespan of a religion is very short. Just because people still call themselves Muslims or Christians does not mean that the real religion, its essence, has not already died a long time ago.

People are very superficial. They think that a label and some routinized rituals mean something. People do not sense their own lack of substance, and that is why they can defend empty rituals and literal interpretations, even though the scriptures or myths often were formulated so that a literal interpretation becomes absurd. Only by sensing that the religion does not feel right and does not fulfill deeper needs can the individual genuinely begin to seek and perhaps find the right interpretation or the origin of his or her religion. Every prophet and originator of a new religion has experienced disappointment with the former religion and how it was practiced. Real spiritual and religious individuals are seekers, people who question.

But then what is this source from which true religion originates? The source consists, in its essence, of two things. The first thing is a self-insight that one's own true identity is an inner observing point or "knower," "observer," "emptiness," "witness" – no definition can quite describe it so this consciousness, veiled behind all thoughts and psychological processes, must be experienced. In the East, this is the original aim of meditation, and in Christian tradition it is called "mysticism." However, "mysticism" is a term that, like religion in general, has different interpretations. Some Christians believe that "mysticism" is to get in contact with God or Jesus as an external invisible gestalt, or a literal voice that speaks to them, and so on. But these are later misinterpretations and superstitutions that are often transmitted by quacks. It is very easy for charlatans to exploit the term "mysticism," and through this concept claim just about anything. So I avoid the term "mysticism" because I do not like the word and I don't know how people interpret it.

But this part of the source of religion refers to the inner source of yourself. What you are when you peel away everything that is temporary and changing and connects to what remains and is permanent – you as an inner observer. And it is this observer or knower who is universal man, who is in God's image, not the rest of you.

The second thing that is the source of religion is a kind of source code or formula that expresses the principles of ultimate reality or highest natural law. This source code is called various things such as "Logos," "Tetractys," "Religio vera," "The Word," "the cross to take up," "God's name," "Jod-He-Vau-He" (or "JeHoVaH"), "Yin-Yang," "Ishvara," "Trimurti," "Odin-Vili-Vé," and so on. Out of this formula or source code, all well-known religious concepts are derived; such as non-dualism, the Creator, Karma, Almighty guide, the light of the world, sacrifice (such as humility and acceptance in front of reality), arithmetics, numerology, astrology, inspired texts, etc.

The purpose of religion is to preserve this source code as sacred and transmit it so that this ultimate guiding principle never dies out. Because without it, only lies and falsity, conflict and disorder, arise, mainly in the form of dualistic thinking – "the devil." And for people, even extraordinary people and philosophers, it is virtually impossible to reach the right conclusion in terms of reality on their own since people are too partial. The second purpose is to heal people and make them more healthy and capable of taking responsibility by giving them proper education in self-knowledge, especially deeper self-knowledge of the inner observer, so that they may develop true free will and act in harmony with the nature of "the Creator" or Ultimate Reality.

So true religion is inner unity, especially with the inner witness; and hard metaphysics, e.g. philosophical principles, process logic, and the consequent meaning of this, such as communicating a worldview born from the answers through storytelling. This is "reconnection to the source." Everything else is more or less pseudo-religion and pseudo-spirituality.

Rígsþula - Norse spiritual castes

In this text I will analyze some more concepts from Norse spirituality, by looking at the Lay of Ríg, or Rígsþula, an Eddic poem describing the origin of different castes. The concept of castes is a very misunderstood part of ancient spirituality, and here I intend to use the Old Norse one as an example. But the principles also apply to other ancient religions.

If you look at various commentaries on Rígsþula it is often described as a "strongly aristocratic song" that describes the emergence of different social classes. But the real meaning has nothing to do with actual social classes. This is, as I have pointed out before, metaphors and symbols for psychological processes and spiritual development within one psyche, or everyone's psyches, as psychological laws and as potentials.

Rígsþula tells or describes how the god Heimdall, in the guise of the wandering man Rígr, visits different homes on earth and shares bed with the couples he meets. The first couple is Ái and Edda which means "great-grandfather" and "great-grandmother." The second couple is Afi and Amma, meaning "grandfather" and "grandmother." And the third couple are simply named Father and Mother. After Rígr's visit to each couple, the woman gives birth to a child nine months later. Great-grandmother gives birth to the son Þræll (Thrall) who is dark-haired and whose kind become ugly but strong slaves. Grandmother gives birth to the son Karl (Churl) who is red-haired and whose kind become free people and farmers. Mother gives birth to the son Jarl (Earl) who is blonde-haired and whose kind become the highest: warriors, kings, and scholars.

I don't think I need to go through again why this should not be taken literally, because it becomes pretty absurd if it is taken literally: everything from the names of the couples Rígr visits, to the fact that he is allowed to sleep with the couples and impregnate the woman, and the origin of the castes in this particular order. How can there be slaves before there are kings, elites or other classes to enslave them?

This very imaginative and unlikely description is deliberate, as a safety measure, so that if the culture begins to take the stories literally, people will become more and more skeptical of the truth of the stories and question them. Ancient religious stories focused a lot on the supernatural and abstraction, not because the people of antiquity were more superstitious than us, but precisely to convey that it should not be taken literally.

So what, then, is the true meaning of this story? To understand, we must first translate the characters and events into principles and psychological processes. Men and women in spiritual writings do not refer to real people. Men and women are aspects within yourself. But which aspects? Based on my study of ancient systems and religions, I have come to the conclusion that the man is a symbol of our inner I, our identity or will. The man is related to our inner observer, the Self, but I think the man more represents the shape the Self assumes based on spiritual health or maturity, etc. Even if you are biologically a woman, the man still represents the center of gravity of your inner Self in your psyche.

So what then is the woman or women in spiritual texts? My conclusion is that our inner woman is our memory, and that women are the form our inner memory assumes. Different aspects of our memory, again based on spiritual health or maturity. Our memory is very closely related to knowledge. It is in our memory that everything we learn is gathered.
That's why the woman is a good symbol for our memory, since the memory is like a container that receives fertilizing knowledge from the outside, like how the woman's uterus receives seed. And the woman's psyche in general is more susceptible to external influences. And this is also a detail that explains why homosexuality between men was often considered bad in antiquity, while they were indifferent to homosexuality among women. Our inner men, different identities or temporary centers of gravity of the Self, cannot produce knowledge on their own. I think it should be interpreted as pure imitation of someone else without reflection or attempt to learn. And pure imitation without reflection is of course destructive both for yourself and others. So in religious texts, even in the Bible, homosexuality has this psychological meaning, and only this psychological meaning.

Same thing with marriage and intercourse. Marriage and intercourse has only a psychological meaning. Intercourse is our inner Self's encounter with knowledge, and what we choose to fill our memory or storage of knowledge with. It is thought process and reflection, which produces a progeny in the form of a new idea or world view. This new idea or concept is represented in spiritual texts by children; by sons and daughters. And again we should consider whether sons and daughters represent different psychological concepts. The son will, after all, grow up and become a new man in the psyche. And the daughter a new woman. So is the son a new identity? A new incarnation or shape for our "I"? Is the daughter a new form of knowledge or world view we retain in our memory?

I think this is on the right track, but we should also consider if the authors of this symbolism were perhaps even more sophisticated than that. In Rígsþula, it is told that the son Thrall married a slave girl and had twelve sons and nine daughters. Also Karl and Jarl got twelve sons each. The ancient number 12 is related to the Zodiac, and the Zodiac is a map of our inner Self's psychological wandering that is repeated. So we have a very complex system here where each cast has its own psychological shape with its own psychological cycle. Obviously, the three different castes represent different degrees of spiritual development or psychological maturity.

"Great-grandfather" and "great-grandmother" were, of course, early forms of our inner Self and memory that did not have enough development or maturity to be able to produce a rich and healthy psychological life. The fact that our psyche is filled with thralls and slaves means that we enslave ourselves through our choice of knowledge or lack of capacity for wisdom. "Grandfather" and "grandmother" are more developed forms of our inner Self and memory that can produce something better. But when we reach a stage of "Mother" and "Father" we have the best possibilities for developing a rich inner psychological life and liberation or spiritual self-realization.

But it is important to understand that our inner self and memory are not alone capable of this. Without the god Heimdall, who comes to visit, is welcomed, and gets to sleep between our inner self and memory, we cannot produce complete spiritual maturity or a rich inner life. Heimdall, like the other gods, is a guiding principle. But what does this principle represent?

In my text about the Edda I analyzed how Heimdall expresses the level of transformation, which happens in the encounter with higher knowledge. This means that Heimdall has about the same function as Holy Spirit in Christianity, since the second baptism is Holy Spirit and is done through education, which also represents consciousness level 2. Holy Spirit means higher knowledge – right knowledge – based on the principles of Ultimate Reality. Same thing with Heimdall.

Both Holy Spirit and the god Heimdall help to fertilize the woman to produce special offspring. Your inner self, the shape of the man you are psychologically, cannot fertilize your inner partner – your memory – with truth, unless it comes from a higher source. And this higher source must be welcomed into your psyche, very important, just like every couple in this story welcomes Heimdall even though they can only identify him as a wanderer. Same thing with knowledge. We cannot know that higher knowledge or truth is truth until later, after it has produced fruit. The concept of welcoming a guest, no matter who it is, symbolizes being open minded and receptive, because we can never find higher knowledge if we become prejudiced, narrow-minded and unwelcoming to new knowledge.

But even if Heimdall, or the right knowledge, visits us, it does not mean that we will understand it or take it in correctly.
If our maturity has not reached beyond Ái and Edda, or Afi and Amma, then we will inevitably distort it and misunderstand a little, and thus not reach full development. Even meeting truth, or the right knowledge, and welcoming it, as Ái and Edda do, does not produce much more than Thrall in the psyche if we are not fully ready or mature enough to take it in. But even Thrall is at least a product of having been open to higher knowledge. This means that people who are not even welcoming to new knowledge are probably at an even lower spiritual level than even Thrall. Their psyches probably still consists of Ymir, or of giants and hrimthurs. Their inner light may even have been swallowed by the Fenrir wolf.

Regarding sons I said that they symbolized new shapes and identities or attitudes in the psychological cycle. But what about the daughters? Thrall got nine daughters, and Karl got ten. It is not said that Jarl got any daughters, but since the whole poem has not been preserved it is possible that his daughters would've been described later on. The ancient number nine has to do with knowledge, since it was the basis of arithmetic or numbers. So, if sons symbolize new shapes and identities, daughters probably represent new systems of knowledge and ways of viewing the world. Women are often interchangeable (analogically) with cities in spiritual texts. And cities also often represent systems of knowledge, culture, and world views. And since the daughters are a product of encountering higher knowledge, it is logical that it happens to be nine in particular as in the base-9 number system.

But why did Karl get ten? If it is not a mistake or addition over time, it is possible that 10 is a representation that includes the zero and thus makes it higher. If Jarl did not get any daughters at all, it may symbolize that the highest development gets rid of systems altogether, and instead relies entirely on experience. Systems, even higher systems, can become unnecessary dogma that gets in the way of true openness and receptiveness. Systems can be very useful as a support in the beginning of learning and essential development, but when we reach complete liberation we should no longer limit ourselves to any systems at all.

The fact that the higher psychological kind is both warriors, royals and scholars, means that the main form of both warrior and king is precisely the educated whose sword is the truth and whose nobility is one's own authentic nature. In other words, this symbolism should not be confused with literal warriors or literal kings and nobles. And it is unfortunate that this symbolism came to be misinterpreted in such a literal way. But what came first, spiritual castes or social castes? Perhaps it was historical social classes that inspired spiritual castes with its symbolical analogy. But in any case it is not difficult to see how this symbolism is problematic, and also obsolete. And that is a pity since spiritual castes have a certain legitimacy, unlike social classes where noblemen, the military and elites rarely are wise or developed.

The symbolism of the Edda and Ragnarok

What is Ragnarok, and how should our ancient norse spiritual tradition be interpreted?

I have mentioned that spirituality can be translated as "essentialness" or "ancient psychology." All spirituality and religion, in which I also include Greek philosophy and 19th century psychoanalysis, derive from the same source – namely ancient metaphysics. It is important to understand that everything is connected, and that the division of all this into artificial categories and dogmas involves a lack of knowledge and competence. Nothing originates in a vacuum, and the only thing that is of essential interest is what is potential improvement or deterioration in truths or timeless wisdom.

In order to understand ancient religions and spiritual teachings, it is necessary to first understand ancient metaphysics. The biggest mistake is to take ancient metaphysics literally and thus believe that religion arose out of superstition. Superstition was something that came later, once people ceased to understand that no spiritual texts should be taken literally.

Before man's language had developed into the complex languages ​​we have today, prehistoric people seem to have used symbols – analogy – to communicate ideas. That's why parables such as light and dark, anthropomorphic creatures, the classical elements, etc., are common in man's early metaphysics that aimed to explain the invisible inner life and the psyche. People used the few words they had for things in the world along the most appropriate analogy or parable. If they had no word for "understanding," they used the term "light", and "ignorance" became "darkness" – since no one sees clearly at night which increases imaginary shapes and fears while daylight exposes what exists in nature and creates more peace and relaxation in the psyche. The use of these metaphors was an ingenious feature of their wisdom tradition, then. Especially since they often had no possibility of preserving insights other than in oral tradition. But over time it became more of a confusion than an effective language.

Psychology is a modern term for what originally was and belonged to spirituality. Psychology is and means the science of the mind or the soul. The word "spirit" is an ancient term that originally stood for thoughts and the intellect. The "spiritual world" is not some supernatural or parallel reality that exists somewhere out there. The spiritual world was and is the inner world of the mind; an invisible world of knowledge, principles, ideas, dreams and psychological states.

The characters in spiritual writings represent these ideas and psychological states which, with the lack of proper teaching from those who were the originators of the texts, are misinterpreted as merely historical individuals or gods which are then prayed to in an imitative and superstitious manner. Spiritual stories were ancient psychology which only used historical and worldly symbols (or people) as analogy to inner mental states and attitudes. A spiritual book that tells about the visible world is in fact not a spiritual book at all. Otherwise all books about history and about religion would be spiritual books.

Arithmetic or mathematics, however, are intellectual and abstract concepts that belongs to the invisible world, and thus constituted an element of ancient metaphysics. Ancient metaphysics and spirituality were closely related to arithmetical operations (equations) and, moreover, the origin of mathematics. Thus science was also an element of ancient metaphysics, which made it hard metaphysics. Numbers are abstract forms that make it possible to achieve higher knowledge and insights into reality, which also makes it possible to act correctly. You cannot separate numbers from logic and thus wisdom.

If these texts and sagas were merely superstitions, why then insert a lot of precise numbers? For example, take the following verse from Grímnismál in the poetic Edda:

   'Five hundred doors
   and forty more
   I think that Valhalla has;
   eight hundred Einherjar
   in width can walk through each door,
   when off to battle the Wolf they go.

I don't know exactly what meaning the numbers 540 and 800 have in terms of symbolism, just that numbers are usually related to geometric structures, astronomical processes, and arithmetics. It is also not certain that the numbers have been preserved correctly. But that eight hundred men can walk through a door at the same time reveals that the original writer did not expect it to be taken literally.

Another example revealing that the writings have a psychological meaning, and not a literal or superstitious one, is the names of Odin's ravens Hugin and Munin, which are usually translated as "thought" and "memory." I have also seen them translated as "reason" and "will." Technically, both names are variants on the word "thought." I'm guessing they are related to the activities of the two halves of the brain and that it should be reason and intuition, where with "intuition" I refer to inner images as in dreams. But to me it doesn't matter exactly what psychological attributes they refer to as long as people understand that they represent precisely psychological attributes. However, it is important to understand that it is not only the ravens or bird creatures that have a psychological meaning. Everything mentioned in ancient mythology and spiritual writings, including the world itself, is a psychological metaphor!

There are, however, two exceptions to this rule. One is a symbolic analogy with historical events where the psychological meaning is still primary. The other is geometric structures and astronomical processes where the latter also often has a historical analogy. For example, 540 x 800 will be 432,000, which is the number of astronomical years people are said to have lived in wisdom before going under in a flood according to an ancient Babylonian priest (Berossos). For 432,000 years foolishness and disorder could be kept at bay before wisdom fell completely, so every year could be likened to a soldier who maintain a fight against madness represented by a beast. And since ancient people saw the world as cyclical processes, it is likely that they also expected that both psychological and historical events would recur.

The Edda is a mixture of religion, history and culture in general. A blend made to preserve knowledge and tradition more economically, especially in oral tradition. Folklore always become a concoction of spiritual concepts, misinterpretations, contradictory elements, exaggerations and historical anecdotes. What we have left of the Nordic ancient spirituality is what remained at the end, when also influences from Christianity had found its way into the material.

Snorri's Edda
I will briefly go through Gylfaginning, ending with the description of Ragnarök, and analyze its psychological (i.e. "spiritual") meaning.

King Gylfi, who visits the Æsir and calls himself Gangleri, is Odin, since he says in the Grímnismál that he has called himself Gangleri and Third. The chieftains he meets are called High, Just-As-High and Third – which means that these too are Odin. Again, we are reminded that this is an abstract metaphor, nothing literal or superstitious. Odin could be said to be reality or existence itself as he is also called "Allfather", and within reality or existence (or a psyche) its different parts interact with each other.

The three chieftains – High, Just-As-High, and Third – are the three timeless principles of antiquity that express divinity. They can be expressed in different forms, but what they essentially express is process logic. Ancient process logic focuses on the basic principle of all movement in nature until it can no longer be reduced. Movement arises from the oscillation, relation or harmony of opposites through equilibrium. Hence the name "Just-As-High" for the second chief or principle. The third principle is the most difficult one to perceive, the actual relationship or movement between polarities, which explains why it is mysteriously called here simply the "Third."

Allfather or Odin is thus not only reality, but also the ancient yin-yang principle or triad that we find in all authentic religions or timeless philosophy. It is found in Hinduism in the form of Trimurti – Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. It is a part of philosopher Heraclitus' principle of reason or "Logos." I have also included this principle in my own timeless education in the form of A X Ω.

In other words, the three chieftains, who are Odin, represent the cause behind all motion and contrasts: the principles of ultimate reality; the Creator; causality; the highest natural law. It is said, among other things, in Gylfaginning that: "Allfather took Night and her son Day, gave them two horses and two carts, and placed them in heaven that they should go around the earth every day." The name Odin has its root in movement, penetration, and even rage, which are expressions of the unstoppable force of reality or nature. But we are also Odin, since we are part of nature and reality. In particular, Odin represents our higher Self or pure consciousness, what is called our inner observer.

The reference to "the old Asgard" probably refers to an even older religion or teaching than the gods in the Edda. The reason I suspect this is because the concept Asgard refers to a scheme or system (which I will go into), and there Allfather had twelve names but none of these were "Odin."

The number twelve, especially related to gods and the like, expresses particular psychological shapes on the way to wisdom. Gods are aspects of reality that represent different ways to finally reach the same overall reality. The worship or sacrifice to a deity is to choose an accessible starting point that fits the circumstances and psychology of the individual (i.e. human type) and by focusing on this part of reality (together with endurance) ultimately be able to realize oneself and understand everything that's essential. Some of these ways or starting points are, for example, love (through which we can reach wisdom); knowledge (through which we can reach love); art and self-expression (through which we can reach self-knowledge); physical activity, family and household, or adventure (through which we can reach educational experiences), etc.

More specifically, gods have their origin in twelve shapes as counselor gestalts to study, depending on the analogy with one's own psychological state or temporary attitude in life. The gods therefore represent different degrees of health.

That Allfather "lives through all ages" means that he is timeless: the movement or process that remains in a world of ceaseless change. That "he has mastered all his kingdom and prevails over everything, both in large and small," also means that he has self-control, i.e. our higher Self's control over the lower energies of the psyche (provided we have manifested our higher Self through the understanding of the principle and self-knowledge).

That he "created heaven, earth, the air and all that is in them" means that this higher principle creates how the psyche is shaped in our mental landscape. That "he created man and gave her a spirit that will remain and never perish, even if the body turns into soil or is burned to ashes" means that this principle leads to awareness of the inner observer or higher Self which was considered immortal. The "body" here does not necessarily refer to the physical body. That is too literal, and the principle here is to not take anything literally. "All the righteous ones" who shall live and stay with him are those psychological aspects that are grounded in reality and consistent with eternal or timeless principles. "Evil people" who goes to Hel and Niflheim are those psychological aspects that increase delusion and ignorance.

The nine worlds are sections of the psyche's or soul's various parts. They are also related to numbers. Before heaven and earth were created, Odin was with the hrimthurs (frost giants), which are the subconscious drives of the psyche. Giants and hrimthurs are symbols of desires and uncontrolled (and often unconscious) drives. That is to say, before a person has formed or "created" order in his/her psyche, "created heaven and earth," the higher Self remains hidden in the mental chaos. This chaos or non-formed psyche is also called Ginnungagap. The frosty Niflheim is related to these unconscious drives. Darkness, cold, sea, storm, chaos and fog are metaphors of ignorance, delusions and subconscious drives. The warm Muspell or Muspelheim is the intellect or a previously enlightened mind, which may refer to childhood wisdom or to influence from an external source. Light and fire are as a rule metaphors for clarity, knowledge and understanding.

The giant Ymir and other creatures are early psychological manifestations born at the beginning of knowledge or wisdom, from the "sparks" and fire from Muspell. These, however, we must later eliminate to form a yet more sane and harmonious psyche. But the psychological aspects we later possess derive from these early giants and creatures, like evolution. But since these early psychological aspects and attitudes were less wise, they are called "evil" – that is, undesirable in the long run. Cows and similar animals are often symbols of ancient spiritual writings and teachings. The cow Auðumbla, who fed the giant Ymir with her milk streams, probably was some old inadequate doctrine. That the cow lived by licking "the frost-coated stones" suggests that the wisdom was not the highest. Stones, mountains and rocks are often metaphors for literal and rigid interpretations of spiritual teachings. But whatever it is, it still helps to shape some better psychological aspects. In the end human beings arise and also Odin, Vili and Vé who are probably the same as Third, High and Just-As-High. They form order in the psyche by killing the giant Ymir.

There we also have an analogy with prehistoric history when a disaster occurred about 11,500 years ago. The latest science indicates that a meteorite struck into the ice sheet that covered most of North America, so that it quickly melted and formed a kind of flood. The generation of hrimthurs – the giants – who drowned from the blood when Ymir is killed, refers not only to immature aspects of the psyche, but also to immature and foolish people at the end of the last Ice Age. But the giant Bergelmir rescued himself with his wife and household by using a boat. He is called the "knowledgeable" giant, indicating that he was a wiser giant and thus used as a symbol of a wiser psychological aspect that is not lost in the internal mental cleansing. It is likely that the boat they saved themselves by is also related to some kind of wisdom cult or similar; old knowledge that was preserved and survived since prehistoric times. That is also a recurring theme in most other religions associated with flood stories. It is through these clues and the analogy that we know that all true religions derive from the same source.

And Odin, Vili and Vé – who create the world out of the former mess, such as Ymir's body – is finally the enlightened mind and higher knowledge. It is the beginning of wisdom and psychological health.

Heaven is the intellect; and the sun, the moon and the stars in the sky are symbols of higher principles that guide.

The earth is what is called the astral body and the center of the formed psyche. It is not dead matter since life and plants grow. Earth is the result that arises from the rest.

The air is the higher emotions, but is not the same as the sky/heaven.

The sea is the lower emotions, the subconscious with all the primitive drives and instincts.

In other words, this is the same symbolism and psychological meaning as the four classical elements. Fire is the sky (heaven) since the sun, the moon and the stars shine like fire. Air is what mediates between heaven and earth, i.e. between fire and earth. The fact that the earth is round like an island in the Great Ocean of the world indicates that the earth is a smaller part of the psyche, probably closely linked with the intellect since it is created by wisdom. Atlantis is a metaphor for an enlightened and healthy psyche that was lost in a stormy mind. It was not just a historical analogy. Historically, Atlantis refers to America and the disaster I mentioned earlier when the ice melted from a meteorite impact. But Atlantis is another subject.

Midgard is a castle in the middle of the earth that defends itself against attacking giants, i.e. intrusive desires. It is when a person has gotten his psyche in order this far that he/she can be called a human being, before that she has metaphorical animal nature or hrimthurs nature. The first humans, Ask and Embla, represent this – healthy psychological aspects. The fact that the first humans are made of trees is related to the world tree that plays a central role in higher knowledge. Asgard, the dwelling of gods, is the memorization or construction of a wisdom system in the mind. It is a kind of model or map or measure that supports wisdom. The gods and their generations are figurative principles that belong in this wisdom construction or system. It is time to take a look at the gods and parts of this system:

Here they are – the twelve gods and their abodes. The Zodiac. However, it is necessary to understand that the Zodiac on the starry sky is just another analogical symbol derived from the visible world to represent the inner psychological one. It is the starry sky within our psyche that is essential, not the one in the night sky. The Zodiac was placed at the center of the culture's consciousness by using its geometry for counting time (calendar). But counting time was its secondary purpose. Like religions, astrology too has been misunderstood through literal interpretations. It is not the planets out there in the solar system that affect our psychology, it is the planets inside our psyche!

Like the Zodiac, the seven classical planets are also merely analogical symbols taken from the visible world to represent the psychological. The seven classical planets are metaphors for levels of consciousness. Each sign of the Zodiac or god, every house or abode in the Zodiac, is associated with a planet – i.e. with a level of consciousness representing the amount of understanding and spiritual health. Planet means "wandering star" and referred to those lights that did not stand still in the night sky. Both the sun and the moon were counted among the seven planets or wandering stars. Sometimes these were called the seven stars, the seven heavens, and the like. But regardless of name, as a rule they refer to levels of consciousness. However, I find nothing written down about seven planets or the like in the Edda, so it does not seem like this concept has been preserved among what has been left to posterity.

The Zodiac is a large part of Asgard, and perhaps Asgard was the actual Nordic name for the Zodiac. Among other things, it is represented by the temple with twelve seats for the gods. Glaðsheimr is another name.

The twelve divine Æsirs are the twelve psychological shapes or attitudes a person assumes on their way to wisdom. Odin, the highest god, is symbolized in the center of the Zodiac. That Odin "sits in the high seat and looks over all the world and understands everything" is yet another metaphor of him being the internal witness or pure consciousness in the psyche that is aware of and knows about all other lower psychological aspects in the mind. Identifying exactly which god belongs to which house in the Zodiac is a bit difficult, and in order to make an accurate guess we must know certain fundamental principles and how the Zodiac works as a psychological system. The most important thing to understand is that each house or sign is connected with a psychological attitude, and this attitude is in turn linked to a planet – that is, with a level of consciousness. In the Zodiac, as we know it, two signs are associated with the two highest levels of consciousness, represented by the Sun and Moon, namely Leo and Cancer. The two highest gods after Odin should therefore belong to these houses on the map. The rest of the houses are arranged like a cycle that goes downward and then up again in terms of level of consciousness beginning at Virgo (next to Leo) and ends at Gemini (next to Cancer).

Thor is said to be the most noble of the gods, and the symbolism with the hammer that breaks the head of giants is analogous to Leo – the shape of the master – who steps on the serpent in the Dendera Zodiac. His residence in the Zodiac is called Þrúðvangr.

Heimdallr is called the white Æsir, great and holy, and has a high position that fits the level of transformation. I call Cancer the level of transformation (level 2) since Cancer was originally represented by the Egyptian beetle that symbolized transformation.

Balder probably belong to Virgo's place since the third level is associated with the original childhood state and innocence. And that Balder represents innocence is obvious in the Edda.

Forseti probably has the place of Libra since he is the god and judge of justice, and the scale is an ancient symbol of justice. So Forseti is on the fourth level of consciousness.

Scorpio is the dangerous, risky or sneaky sign – the sting that risks killing off wisdom by tempting us to think in opposites. This is clearly represented by Loki, the slanderer of the gods and the origin of all falsehood. And the origin of all falsehood is to not see the harmony of opposites, i.e. to think dualistically and to bring suspicion and accusations towards various aspects of reality.

Accusations and mistrust leads to a conflict with the opposite and disturbs the harmony. This is probably represented by the god Ullr who is said to be war-like in all his being. This is consciousness level 6. In the Zodiac, this is represented by Sagittarius, and Ullr is said to be a good archer.

This leads us to the lowest level or rock bottom, and what god can represent this if not a blind god? Höðr, who happen to kill Balder (although Loki manipulates him) is called blind but strong, and it is said that the gods would probably wish they did not have to remember him. He is also called Hel's companion.

At the sign of Aquarius, which symbolizes new hope in the dark, we probably find the god Víðarr who is said to be quiet. But also Váli is a possibility since he is called Höðr's enemy and slayer.

Pisces, representing the sleeping masses at level 6, are likely represented by the whale-fish god Njörðr.

It is the gods Bragi, Týr, Víðarr, and Váli, which I have the most difficulty placing. They belong to the remaining signs in the Zodiac. There are articles written by individuals who have realized that the gods are associated with the Zodiac, but those I have seen have placed the gods at the wrong signs since they do not understand how the system was meant to work. I have not found anyone who understands that the planets are essential and that they represent levels of consciousness. So do not trust other lists you may find out there. People are lazy and ignorant, even people with academic education. The wives and children of the gods and the like probably belong to the decans of the Zodiac.

Wolves are related to the giants and represents ignorance, madness and things forgotten. Sköll, who chases the sun, and Hati who chases the moon, are psychological forces that can stifle knowledge and insights. Same thing with the Fenrir wolf. One thing that is a bit annoying with ancient spiritual jargon is that the same concept is often repeated with different names and shapes and stories. For example, it is obvious that the wolf Sköll is the Fenrir wolf, since they both swallow the sun. Same thing with all the different names and shapes Odin has. My guess is that people enjoyed telling different variations based on the same ideas, a bit like how today's entertainment industry often goes through trends where they draw inspiration from each other. Then the most popular stuff was preserved and mixed together into a concoction, which people later held on to out of reverence instead of sorting out what was the most important and simplifying it. It is just like all the entertainment, literature and culture that exist today. Nobody wants to throw anything away or sort out what really is of value.

By the time the Edda was written down by Snorri there were also not many who practiced this religion anymore, and if they did chances are that it had deteriorated and was being taken literally.

The dwarves, who have human shapes, appear to be less important principles in the system, which is suggested by the fact that some of them have the names North, South, East and West. The elves are probably principles or ideas of greater importance than the dwarves.

The ash tree Yggdrasil is another part of the system, or more precisely the origin of spiritual systems: namely ancient arithmetic and mathematical operations – which is the source of the 9-base numerical system and mathematics. The tree, i.e. the arithmetic, is "the most holy place of the gods." Like mathematical logic, its branches spread all over the world and reach over the intellect, what is called "heaven" in ancient spiritual writings. It can be illustrated in this way:

The worlds here are distinct classes of phenomena divided into planes or levels that summarizes every complete being or thing, similar to what we today call fractals. The whole process can be likened to a tree where every new branch and also the nerve structure of every new leaf repeats and reflects the basic pattern of the tree. Hence why ancient systems called the numeral system the "world tree." All diversity can be dissolved into the basic laws that governs it and expresses itself in the numbers 1 to 10 in the above manner. Every thing in the universe contains in one of its constituent parts a fully reflected world.

Thus we find three dimensions of polarities in each complete phenomenon: the polarity of a sphere as well as polarities between spheres. And this is a miniature picture of the universe expressed in numbers. As you can imagine, this ancient teaching about numbers is quite difficult to understand, making the symbolic metaphor of trees and worlds very abstract. Therefore I usually stick to the worlds expressed in the psyche, which tends to be the essential.

At first I thought that the three roots that upholds the tree were the three columns of this ancient arithmetic. But after reading more in the Edda, I suspect that the three roots are the three spheres of the psyche or soul. The first root is the upper sphere associated with the Æsir. The second root is the mediating sphere between intellect and vitality and seems to be associated with the giants. The third root is the lower sphere, the vital one or sensory-motor. The fact that each root has a life-giving well for the tree means that no world, not even Hel, can be rejected. There is wisdom in every natural system that is inherent in the energies of an organism, but this self-knowledge of one's own biological nature and function is often lacking.

That Odin hung on the world tree pierced by a spear symbolizes self-sacrifice and process of meditation in search of self-knowledge – which is real wisdom. He puts himself to death, that is, his own ideas and assumptions, and learns how to learn from nature. Runes are hidden or secret knowledge. The goal of a heroic adventure is to become a non-hero, someone who does not try to be something they are not.

The Edda or poetic poems such as Völuspá are symbolized by the goat Heiðrún; the tree it eats off is the world tree which is knowledge and arithmetic operations; the milk or the mead she spills is the fine nectar of the sagas. Thus Heiðrún produces more nourishment than the cow Auðumbla, who did not feed on equal knowledge.

Other text or poem is represented by the hart Eikthyrnir; the branches it feeds on are also the world tree; the droplets from its horns are the wisdom; Hvergelmir (the primordial well) in Niflheim is the unconscious in the mind; "the elves who all from there originates" are likely higher feelings such as those that produce poetry and expressions of art. Here, however, I have to question whether they really mentioned the correct well for the origin of the elves.

The fact that the ash tree is exposed to various other animals might symbolize that the concept is easily damaged by misinterpretations and the like. That the tree is related with secret and special knowledge is obvious. Birds are usually related to intellectual activity, like Hugin and Munin. Urðarbrunnr is probably related to a place in the Zodiac since it resides in heaven. Same with Alfheim, Breidablik, Glitnir, Himinbjörg, Valaskjálf, Gimlé, etc.

More than one heaven is mentioned. These are likely related to levels of consciousness as I mentioned earlier. The number of heavens, however, is not mentioned here. The fact that the myths do not claim to know everything and sometimes speculate reveals that they are incompletely preserved. Things are missing and have been lost, but we could already guess that.

The Midgard serpent symbolizes, like serpents in other mythologies, the vital life force. When it eats its own tail and circulates around the earth, it is a metaphor for harmony in the vital energy. Order in the world is a metaphor for order in one's own psyche and self-control.

The thin and soft fetter or band that binds the Fenrir wolf symbolizes the power of small things, and that often it does not require much to keep ignorance and folly at bay, if one has consciousness. Knowledge is generally the power of the small, and the key is usually a secret or knowledge instead of physical strength.

Valkyries represent some form of guiding principles or ideas that increase knowledge and wisdom, thus it is said that they carry drinks and mead. Drinks such as mead, wine, milk, etc., are symbols of wisdom. That is why Odin, the god of Wisdom, is said to only live on wine. That there are precisely 13 Valkyries being listed makes me suspect that they are also related to the Zodiac. The people they choose are those inner thoughts and attitudes that lie closest to the higher wisdom and are timeless.

There is, however, much that is difficult to interpret, and also quite futile, since it may well be things that are not preserved well or did not belong to the original ideas to begin with. So I will focus on the two stories that the Edda itself says are the most important: the death of Balder and Ragnarok.

The death of Balder
Balder symbolizes innocence or the original childhood state, and his death is not a physical death but a metaphorical spiritual or psychological death – that is, innocence is lost in the individual's psyche. The innocence is killed by Loki, that within us that wants to accuse, slander and criticize reality, people or our own nature. I.e. dualistic thinking. That's what the antagonistic god or force symbolizes in most religions. Balder, the innocence, can be restored if all psychological aspects of the individual want it. But in a person who has lost his or her innocence, there is always an aspect that is indifferent. This is represented by the giantess, Þökk, who refuses to cry for Balder and says Hel can keep him. This giant likely represents some form of resentment that feels that innocence is not of use or to any benefit in the individual. The point is that the individual who loses their innocence, their inner Balder, has something in themselves that does not think the innocent open childhood state led to anything good. A kind of inner wound they carry. It is also said that Þökk was probably Loki, and that is possible since internal wounds are related with accusations and hostility towards something.

Ragnarök
The fact that aspects such as Loki, the Fenrir wolf and other psychological forces also arise in an enlightened mind with a orderly world means that the whole thing is a cyclical process. The possibility of losing one's wisdom or purity is always there. And when this happens, the individual must again go through Ragnarok and renew the world, the inner psychological harmony and health. An analogy with the external cultural world also exists, of course, where wisdom is lost in cultures. Attempts are made to bind and suppress both the Wolf and Loki by the inner higher aspects, but for the process to succeed, these must be released and expressed. A necessary expression of pathology on the path to health, freedom and wisdom. Every enlightened man has undergone his own Ragnarok.

First, mental unhealth and darkness arise in the individual, which is symbolized by the Fimbulwinter. The number 3 stands for completion of something, beyond the two principles of dualism. Three winters in a row does not mean the usual temporary bad mood or the like, it is pathology that is undergone to a purifying degree. The psyche is about to be restored or reborn. All the old has to die so that something new can begin, a complete healing and inner transformation. War and disorder between people is another expression of this initial process. Our psyche is in disarray because our own inner aspects, thoughts, wills and ideas are not consistent or in tune with one another. We lack self-control and a stable psychological ground to stand on.

That the Wolf devours the sun means, as previously said, that folly and ignorance reaches its culmination; reason and clarity of vision are lost. All order in the psyche is lost in chaos, the mental inner world is collapsing. The Midgard serpent is probably uncontrolled passions, overdesiring, dualistic aggression, and the like. The boat Naglfar, made out of dead people's nails, is probably related to negative verbal expressions and curse words. In another place in the Edda it is implied that the mouth can be called a boat with the tongue as its rudder. And since Loki, the slanderer, is aboard Naglfar, it is likely that the boat symbolizes verbal accusations. Hel, the death kingdom, is psychological suffering – feelings of lack, confusion, self-deception, frustration, despair, etc. Hel is Loki's daughter, that is, the offspring of the dualistic thinking. The Midgard serpent and Fenrir wolf too are Loki's offspring.

The sons of Muspell who come riding with burning fire and a sword that "shines stronger than the sun" is the inner conflict that arises in the encounter with higher wisdom and truth. Ragnarok can not happen unless it is in a context where the individual has access to or is confronted by higher wisdom. Ragnarok is the conflict between own partial desires, false knowledge, inner wounds and higher wisdom or truth. That is why only a person on the road to enlightenment can complete Ragnarok and renew themselves. Odin, the shape of the higher Self, battles ignorance – the Wolf. Thor, the psychological force that attempts to control the lower energies, battles the out-of-control desires – the Midgard serpent. The old system and symbolism collapses as it is time for an update, the gods fall in front of both the mental chaos and the renewed wisdom that comes with Surtr and the sons of Muspell. That Víðarr does not fall may be because he is the silent god, ready to take in and listen to the new. Váli, the other god who survives, probably has similar virtues. Thus Víðarr puts an end to ignorance, the Wolf.

That Surtr is victorious and burns the whole world confirms that he represents renewing purifying wisdom. Fire is related to consciousness, since light is a symbol of clarity of vision, and burning the old system and renewing is also something like forming a new religion or wisdom teaching, though still based on the same timeless principles. Ignorance increases when the old system begins to be misunderstood, so the system or tradition must constantly be renewed. The new beautiful earth, however, primarily represents the new inner health and order inside the psyche of the self-perfected or enlightened individual. Balder, the innocence that is goodness, comes home from Hel, etc.

This is, in general and essential terms, the spiritual meaning of Ragnarok and the Edda. And of course we all know that the old gods have long since been replaced by new ones. But what nobody has done is to update the system and ancient wisdom in a competent manner. And that is what Timeless Education aims to do: an update of timeless wisdom adapted to our time.