What to believe in?


What does that mean?

In a postmodern time, with no solid values - religion seems to be old fashioned, belongs to an older society, at least the rituals and the religions that take away our own responsibility.

God is taken down to earth, or is something to believe when we are in real crises.

We  now know that we can make a disaster on earth and that we , as long as we have been on earth, have chased the big animals to extinction.

We know that we no longer are in the center of the solar system. And that the solar system is in the outskirts of the galaxy and so on....
                                         

Freud and other after him, has shown that we even cant control ourselves.

Dawkins with friends mean that the genes control us. Religion is just superstition.

What is left?

What to believe in?

Is it really just to believe in oneself?

Can it be as Wittgenstein has written; meaning lays in the context of language. We construct the meanings.Or maybe can the meaning just be to live your life as fully as we can to live up to your full potential, as Aristotle  meant. Then we also will be happy...
No gods or world of ideas are needed.

That seems to be what zen-Buddhist and mindfulness teacher  Thich Nath Hanh also means:
 Heaven is one earth or in the here and now - Though its an idea filled with religious connotations
and its not about reaching any potentials in the future.

But maybe its possible to combine Hanh's and Aristole's ideas with the secular view of mindfulness as an exercise just as it is good to go to a gym.

Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, also began meditating while in college
and is a proponent of mindfulness, a form of secular meditation.
Goleman said in an interview: "Mindfulness seems to strengthen an array of neurons in the left prefrontal cortex, which inhibits the stress reaction driven by the amygdala, that triggers the cascade of stress hormones in the fight or flight response.

Regular practice is key: It’s exactly like building up a muscle. What you begin to notice as you strengthen it is the absence of the negative state." (from NationalPost: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/2050+mental+exercise+will+important+physical+neuroscientist/2051803/story.html ) 

That will give no meaning with a big M. But if it makes you a bit more happy, it can make you stop looking after the big Meaning. And instead be more aware of the small wonders of the daily life, as this misty morning in Stockholm.... 
And for me believing in myself, means believing in the world. 





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