“God created all creatures equal, except man. To man, He gave freedom of choice.”
This thought is what my grandfather always told me, and now 30 years later, it struck me that our being and personality, our potential and our actualization, are not equal.
What is that choice? What do we have the freedom to choose? What are you? Basically we all are merely an accumulation of memories thoughts and manner of being learnt through exposure to other people, parents, teachers, friends, TV and so on. All we are is a collection of ways to act, expressions to repeat, and opinions we have acquired.
We have the freedom to choose to live as imitations of an accumulation of experiences and impressions which form our opinions or, to bring forth our own true nature.
Our opinions are the means by which we interact with the world, a way of relating in a manner that each of us can comprehend and more importantly, control. However that also limits the world we live in to our own subjective image of it.
If you look carefully and objectively at all situations, you will see who is behind certain actions and why they are being done. It is not always as clear as it appears, but the clues are there for the seeking mind. Once you see that, then you will also have to take a new view of your reactions to every situation. Remember, you react not in accordance to the truth of the situation, but in accordance to the way you perceive the situation to be, your opinion of it. And most importantly always remember that the human is a very easily fooled and manipulated creature, basically you are very gullible.
Form YOUR Own Opinions
The purpose of this lesson is to offer you a means of viewing the world in a way that you will form your own vision rather than just absorb and accept that which is fed to you. Once you have been able to begin to form your own view rather than accept and conform to what the world view is or what is public opinion, then you will have formed your own opinions. Once you have reached that stage, then you are a bit closer to removing opinions altogether. It must be done in these stages because going from purely being programmed to have no program at all is not possible nor healthy.
You must learn to govern yourself, and if you think about your life and daily activities, you will see that current situations will probably never effect you. The goal of mass propaganda is to instill fear. Some people can be very tricky and gain unending pleasure by disturbing the lives of other people. Now as a seeker of truth we must examine why fear is harmful. Simply because it takes your energy away from looking into your true nature. So if you can relieve yourself of the need to fear by realizing the irrelevance of the situation towards your personal life, then you can remove fear and focus your energies where they will do you the most good.
News is not given to the public to make conscious choices, but rather to give them subjective opinions not of their own, but of the choice of the people behind the press.
Opinions Are Relative Illusions
Everything is relative and that is the relationship to opinions. Opinions are relative programmed or fed judgments of a situation based on one persons position and point of view, regardless of objective reality. I was in Thailand at the time of the gulf war, the Israeli travelers where very concerned about the war, but the locals in Thailand had no idea about the war at all, never mind its relevance to the world. It did not effect them personally so they had no fear about it. Their opinion was that it was irrelevant, the Israelis opinion was that it was a devastating potential to kill people they knew and cared about or perhaps destroy their own home, and for some, it meant cutting short their trip and returning to fight. But the villager in Thailand’s jungles lived and slept just like any other day in his life without a care in the world.
This is the problem of opinions, they form your world and prohibit you from seeing any situation objectively. In order to be an enlightened being, you must see the world objectively which means that if you are in the middle of a battle, run for cover and if you are in the fields, tend your farm. What you really need to know about is what you are doing.
Keep your mind open at all times and remember that every thought you have is a subjective opinion and possibly very wrong, although it may be right from time to time. You never know when what may be irrelevant to you today will become a turning point in your life. Only if you are open minded and objective, will you see what is around the corner heading towards you or away.
It is that uncertainty about your own mind that is the key to keeping you watching your mind. Eventually if you watch your mind enough, you will come to a realization as to who is watching. And you shall find who you are, really?
Join the discussion
David, what do you mean by:
Every action we take affects us, I thought? Do you mean that there is nothing we can do each day that could give us a reason to feel fear?
Thanks.
Hi Ande,
I was referring to events that are unrelated yet we ‘make’ them affect our lives. For example, if a bus crashes in the middle of Africa, and two people die who you have no connection to, there is no real reason, unless you are somehow connected to the event, for this event to alter your life. That is a distant example to make the point. You may find that events which are even very close to you ultimately have the same lack of affect on your life. However your imagination could focus on events and by that focus create a disruption to your mood or day. In this way you create an effect when none was really there.
Pingback: Everything Works In A Pattern | Entrepreneur Monk