The world of the brain is quite strange. We all create our own virtual realities that exist only inside our brains. For example, somebody feels cheated in a relationship and carries that feeling throughout their life, while the "cheater" may have the same sense of being cheated. People are willing to spend lakhs to visit the mountains, while the people living in those mountains want to move to the plains. Many poor people spend their lives with the dream of becoming rich, while many rich people, like Buddha, give away the comforts of palaces to seek the meaning of life.
It's difficult to discriminate between the real and the fake. Our brain often creates an illusion. It's the most difficult thing in this world to understand the nature of this illusion. It's like trying to find the real colour of an object while wearing coloured glasses. That's almost impossible. Since different people are wearing glasses of different colours, the same object will appear different to these people. We have glasses of different colours on our eyes in the form of our beliefs, cultures, value systems, life experiences, and mental stories. Almost all our reactions are contaminated by these glasses.
For most people justification of their beliefs is more important than knowing the reality. The entire world is busy proving "I am right" without realizing that there is nothing right and nothing wrong. It's contextual. There is a famous proverb in Hindi "घर का भेदी लंका ढाए". This is in the context of the Ramayana. Vibhishana was the brother of Ravana, but he did not agree with the thought process of Ravana. Therefore, he decided to leave Ravana and join Rama and told the secrets of the death of Ravana. Rama was able to kill Ravana after knowing those secrets. Now, this proverb is often used in the context of betrayal. But, if we look at the proverb from a different perspective, Vibhishana tried to convince Ravana that his act of kidnapping Sita was improper and he should return Sita respectfully. But he did not listen to Vibhishana. In fact, the insulted Vibhishana and threw him out of his kingdom. Ravana chose his greed over Vibhishana, and Vibhishana chose truth over greed. Where is the question of betrayal in this choice?
However, Ravana will not accept that because his brain is obsessed with the "mental story" his brain has created. Since he is repeating that mental story again and again and not allowing a fresh breeze of thoughts, due to his position of power, it's difficult for him to realize that he is trapped in the virtual reality created by his brain. We are all caught in one or the other virtual reality created by our brains. We are constantly busy "becoming" rich, powerful, influential, likeable, and good people.
The worst thing that can happen to a human being is that his brain creates some mental stories and then he closes himself. One mental story can finish a person's life. It may be a mental story that fills us with a desire to achieve something, or a mental story to take revenge, or a mental story of feeling worthless. If we close the windows of our brain and stop reading "good books" that give us a different perspective, do not allow our friends to spit the reality in our faces, do not have wise people around us who have examined life from a distance, do not introspect, and cannot look at ourselves as a third person, we are trapped in our virtual reality. We will live our lives like robots dancing to the command of the "virtual reality" our brain has created. It's like painting the picture of a God and then remaining afraid of being punished by the same God throughout our lives. Once we are caught in this trap, it's very easy for the brain to connect the unrelated dots to prove the stories true. We didn't listen to the advice of some baba, and that's why something bad happened to us. Human life is very precious, and we may use it for the exploration of reality or waste it by being trapped in some mental stories.
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