This is not a question of "why don't you use an ad blocker". This is not about me. It's about the people who visit my page and what they see. I do not want them to see an ad for a religion. My thoughts on this are the following (go get yourself a sandwich and some soda, this gonna be a long post):
I'm a very spiritual person, though I wouldn't call myself religious or affiliated with any religion in particular. I strongly believe that whatever answers or questions or truths it may be that a person is looking for in a religion, lies within themselves. Just as we are all unique human beings, so are our needs, beliefs, and truths. There isn't one reality, or one religious truth - there are as many as there are people, and probably more. Reality and truth are what a person feels, and what it feels like to them. So for someone it may be right to be a Catholic and join a monastery, for some it may be that they truly are Wiccan, and in their perception of the world, that is the perfect truth, and it is as true for that person as it is false for the next person, who can't but laugh about witches.
I believe that if you're truly seeking, you will find your way. Everyone who's truly seeking will find their way. At the end, all ways end up at the same mountain top - and if you're atop a mountain, who asks which way you took to get up? When you're atop a mountain, all that matters is enjoying being there. So find your way. And it lies within yourself. It is your way, and there is no way that somewhere out there you will by magic or happenstance find your truth. Even if you would come across what would be your truth: If you don't know what's within yourself you will have no way of knowing that this is the truth that would match the you, and you would go on tossing it out just like any other option before.
There is a lot written about and promised about "mountain tops" (or enlightenment, or whatever it may be that we're looking for in religion or spirituality). Some people don't care about it, and some do. Above, I wrote "truly seeking". In my opinion, there are a lot of "false seekers": People who do feel this urge to reach the mountain top, but they don't want to work on themselves, turn their gaze to their inside, and acknowledge and accept what and how they truly are, and find a way from there. To me it seems that there are a lot of people who want to ignore their own true self, their inside, their thoughts and needs, and instead they're looking for some sort of back entrance or shortcut to the "mountain top" without having to walk their way.
Walking your way may not always be joyful, in fact, it might be painful and you will meet many obstacles and you'll be tempted to go all "fuck the mountain top, I just want to rest". If your soul is truly seeking, you will keep walking, maybe taking a rest, but you will not be able to stop yourself from trying to find your way up. False seekers will keep trying to look for shortcuts - paying someone to carry them up there, discussing how one could build cable cars or shoot a rocket or whatever else they can think of to reach the mountain top if they just don't have to look inside and find their own way. The point is - you can't get there if you don't walk *your* way, and you do it yourself. Either you accept this, and you go and look for your inner way up the mountain - or you don't, and you will stay down, not matter how long you look for a shortcut or if you just don't care about the mountain.
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with not wanting to be on top of a mountain, not at all! (I hate real-world hiking, by the way). But if you're a seeker, you can't but try and walk up, like you can't stop thinking about eating when you're hungry. There's nothing really you can do about it when you are a seeker.
Finding and walking your own way is very hard, sometimes not very pleasing (talk about looking in the mirror and seeing yourself for what you truly are and feel), and oftentimes totally confusing and frustrating. It can help a lot to talk about the finding of your way to other people - Mountaintop Wayfinders Anonymous - or to talk to someone who's been seeking and walking for a while, and might have one or the other advice for you (which you can then ignore or choose to take). Some of these people, and some of them are already on top of the mountain, dedicate a lot of time and effort into helping other people finding their way. I agree that even if they're high up or on top of the mountain, they have to buy food, pay rent, gas, clothes, and so on. If they dedicate so much time to others, they probably don't have enough time to work a regular job; so it is only fair that in exchange for their help, you pay them something.
Usually, these people are called priests, or teachers, or gurus, or monks, or nuns, ... every culture has something like that. And we give them money so they can make sure that the knowledge about finding one's own way up the mountain isn't lost, and that they can help seekers to find their way.
Ha! Where there is money, there are crooks. They don't give a shit about mountains, seekers, ways, or you. They care about money. And if it is pretending to carry you up, showing you a way that "works for everybody, but we're only showing it to the chosen ones", or pretending to build you a cable car that makes you give them money, hell they will pretend the sky being pink if that's what it takes. And they very well know that they're screwing you over.
So,
- zero, no two ways up the mountain are the same, just as no two people are the same
- one, the way lies within yourself, only you can find it, your way is unique, and nobody can tell you what it is or find it if not you
- two, advice helps a lot, and just as you will find your way, you will find your teacher.
- three, there is nothing wrong with paying a teacher a fair amount in exchange for their help
- four, a true teacher knows that you will find them along your way if they are truly on your way
Which leads me to the conclusion that a true teacher will not advertise. Because they know they would only attract false seekers who are too lazy to go find and walk their own way. And because they know that the only people for they can really be a teacher will, inevitably, find them along their way and recognize them. True seekers who pass them along their way, and for whom they are not the right teacher, will know and keep on walking - you meet a lot of people who aren't your teachers along your way.
So if someone who likes to see themselves as teachers (a "church" or "cult" or whatever you call it) goes around ringing doorbells or publishing ads, it can only be that they are false teachers out to get your effing money and abusing your urge to get farther up the mountain to screw you over. You don't pay money for an ad if you don't expect to make more money out of the people seeing that ad.
I don't care if visitors to my MySpace page would see an ad for Justin Bieber's album or one for Ben&Jerry's. That's stuff that people make to make money; ads are necessary to make money, cause (for practical purposes) nobody goes out there seeking the perfect brand of ice cream that matches their taste buds. But that doesn't hold for beliefs. Religion is about the irresistible urge to seek within yourself - and only then you will find. Your true teachers - you will find them along your way. If someone forces themselves into a place along arbitrary people's ways by smashing an ad in their face, chances are they don't want *you*, they want just anyone who'll give them money. Just like Ben&Jerry's.
That is why I do not want ads for any religion of any kind anywhere near me, or anybody else.
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