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Self Examination

Changing the frame is not easy, primarily because we cannot see what lies beyond it. All of us live within the frame of society that provides great comfort to us and that's why social validation plays such an important role in our lives. Being a part of society gives us a lot of comfort and safety. We get sick, and we have people to take care of. We have people to share our thoughts with. We have festivals to celebrate. We have common beliefs and have common rituals. That makes our life comfortable. 

However, there are movies across the world on the theme of love. When a person falls in love (or grows in love), he gets the courage to look beyond the limited frame of society. In Hollywood, especially, so many movies have been made around the theme. People from one religion marry the people of other religions. People marrying across regions, communities, social strata, and so on. It's not an easy decision because it forces all the family members to expand their frame of mind. The binary world wherein only our beliefs and way of living are right and their way of living and beliefs are wrong has to give way to a thought process where two conflicting beliefs can coexist. 

It's not an easy process because of the "sense of absoluteness" about our beliefs and way of living in our minds. There is no problem having beliefs but the problem is that we forget that these are just beliefs. At some point in time, some enlightened souls formed a hypothesis of the reality, and such views struck a chord with the society of the day and these beliefs got carried over to us across generations. They may or may not be true. Some of these beliefs might have lost their originality and may have become quite contaminated because of their distortions during the period of their transmissions. Some of them may not be that relevant in the present time and space. Intelligence demands that we examine each of our own beliefs and ways of living with complete awareness, openness, and attention. 

The human mind is a master at economizing energy. It knows that it requires a lot of effort and energy to examine our own mindset. It's like a complete health checkup that may throw so many unnoticed and undesired truths about ourselves. The fatty liver, the low levels of Vitamins, and the deficiencies in certain parts of the body. Moreover, many times, there are false alerts because many of the Gurus and Babas we get attracted to are quacks and carry out wrong diagnoses so as to frighten us to add us to their list of followers so that their business flourishes. Out of all these fears, we just avoid self-examination. However, self-examination just requires one commitment and that is a commitment to truth. The moment we are clear that we just want to know the truth about ourselves and the world, there is no confusion and the truth starts revealing itself. We can see through all the falsities and pretensions about everybody including ourselves. Else, we just keep hiding behind the comfort of validation by society where almost everybody has a blindfold on his eyes not having the courage to see the reality until that reality forces us to see it in the form of disasters. 

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