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After I started this section some interesting things happened. Not only did I start to feel guilty, but I also noticed that my normal mode of thinking didn't function properly any more. Somehow my mind went blank after going into a certain line of thoughts. My mental body seemed to be lost somehow. The process of ripening thoughts was put to a halt.
GUILT, ADDICTIONS AND A BLANK MIND
After I added some pages with ads I felt guilty: I had started to dance with the devil: the commercial advertisement business, the root of all evil. This concept was the main cause for my inability to think freely. I couldn't put two thoughts together, for whenever I noticed something new developing I stopped myself immediately by thinking: "So, now you are developing a new thought and you are going to use it for your own good, to make money out of it, you unethical, greedy bastard, abusing your ascension process for such a commercial project." Well, you can imagine that this isn't very productive for any creative process to unfold.
On top of that I was attracted by google's page which you get when you put ads on your site. This page gives you wonderful statistics on how much money you 'raised' with your pages. Not that it was much (a number of dollar cents), but there it was. You could see how 'successful' your site is, commercially. So, I noticed myself looking at that members page a number of times a day, to see how my new project was coming about. This wasn't very beneficial for my creative process either, in fact it was only fueling my sense of guilt: I was exploiting my site and my process to receive this dirty money.
My belly crumbled, my mind turned blank and my conscience screamed. What was I to do about all this? I could remove all pages with the ads and move on the way like nothing had happened, or I could find another way out of this mental and emotional mess. It took me a few days to allow in the thoughts that are likely to fix this situation. My belly expanded again with joy so I think I have found the solution.
THOUGHTS, ATTENTION AND ADS
I have come to the conclusion that the way the ads are presented at the pages in this section are quite friendly and not overwhelming. In fact you hardly see them, unless you read a certain page completely. The ads are not agressively blinking and they often have at least some connection to the contents of the page concerned. The company pays me and not the visitors, which is something that is reassuring for me: the visitors are not exploited by me. They have every right not to click on anything. Since they are at the bottom of the pages they are not distracting too much. They only start attracting attention when the reader is almost finished with a page.
I have decided to stop looking at the members page of the google ads so frequently: it has a adverse effect on my state of mind. There is no need in looking at these statistics. I will receive some money automatically anyway. I think that it really is not the ads themselves that are killing my mind, but the way that I deal with it. As soon as I released this new addictive need to look at these statistics and I started to release the mind-wrecking sense of guilt, things cleared rather smoothly.
The fact that my creative flow is running again is a sign for me that it really isn't too bad to have these small ads on my site, at least at the pages in this section. It really isn't such a bad and commercial virus as my black-and-white spiritual vs. commercial mind has made me believe. As long as I take my time to let new thoughts ripen and not speed ahead, it seems to me that it is quite alright to receive some money in return for all the work that I have put in this project since 1998. I'm even glad now that I was daring enough to enter this realm. Sometimes it is quite alright to just try out something that you think is not done or spiritually incorrect. Only after doing it I noticed if were right, partially right or not right at all.
Feel free to share your thoughts on these issues.
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