A common story which you all might have heard before. Two men are sitting in a bar in Alaska and after a few beers the discussion veers towards god. One is religious and another atheist. The atheist say that one day he was out hunting when a blizzard came and he was stuck. When things started getting bad he prayed that if there is a god then help me get out of here. After some time a stray dog from his village comes and shows him the way to his village. I know what you will say – the religious man said that who you think sent the dog to you. May be the dog was just passing by and helped him. It all depends on how we interpret the story. Both the people interpret the incident as per their belief and ideas most of which are ingrained by the society and it is a blind certainty for them. This certainty is not to be questioned but everything is to be understood and judged within the parameters of this certainty. So is the title of this article- 6 seen from the other side is 9.
Our school and college education is all about imparting knowledge but that knowledge is meant to light up the wisdom within us and not just understanding some theories rules and laws. It is not to tell us what to think but how to think and giving us a choice of to think without any closed certainty. A closed mind is like a prisoner who doesn’t know he is in a prison. Once we know how to think it will lead us to the awareness that what I consider absolute certain may turn out to be 100 percent wrong.
Though not literally but we consider ourselves to be at the center of the universe. That is because the whole universe is there because I exist and my thoughts and thinking interpret how the universe works. This is the default setting within all of us- My interpretation of things is final. The world is all round you and you are interpreting it as per your understanding. In other words we are self centered. It is very easy to get influenced by the monologue you are having in your head. Learning how to think gives you a control over what you chose to think and how you think and not fit into pre defined thought process.
Your daily life is a mundane repetition of a cycle. You wake up get ready then go to office, work like there is no tomorrow, exhaust yourself and then return to your home through heavy traffic cursing all the way due to boredom and frustration. Then you return home, tired, watch some TV or listen to music and have dinner and sleep only to repeat to cycle each day of your adult life. The day you have to shop you go to the store while returning from work, which is already full with men like you. You somehow finish filling up your cart only to line up for checking out. Other men and women equally frustrated and tired like you are standing all around you. Then after a long time your turn comes and you pay and return to home, more tired.
It is easy to curse the boss in your office who makes you work like a donkey, all the vehicles in front of you on the road and the ones cutting you ahead, and all the irritating people standing in front of you on the line to check out in that store. That is our default setting because I am in the center of the world and all others are making my life difficult, that the world is not going as per my priorities. This thought process is so automatic in us that we don’t think about a choice of how we interpret things going around us. We will not consider the fact that the other person may had a worse day than me, maybe he got fired from work that day, maybe the lady in front of me during check out is here after doing 2 tiring jobs, maybe the guy cutting me in my lane is in a hurry to reach the hospital to see his son who had an accident. It is more likely that I am in their way. It is hard to think this way as then I will lose my place as the center of this world, I will have to make a conscious effort to think that way.
Once you decide to exercise your option to think differently then only you will have the awareness of the frustrating consumer lifestyle we all are living day in and day out. Then you will understand that you are not at the center of the world but you are one of the crowds who is blocking others way. That will be the freedom from the closed mindset to the freedom of real understanding and education. The day you will focus on what you chose to think, that day you will enjoy real freedom from the materialistic men money and power to the holistic freedom of a bigger awareness that life is more than the blind certainty prison you are living in.
Well said. It's natural for us to put ourselves in the centre of the world and blame others. This is the inner child in us speaking (or more like throwing a tantrum).