To know the reality, we need to break free from our beliefs and imagination. We form an image of different people in our minds when we hear about them from our friends and colleagues, and actually, when we interact with them, we find them to be quite different people. If we do not interact with those people, we will live with their images all throughout our lives. Similarly, with have formed an image of God in our mind based on the stories told to us since childhood. But is that reality?
Knowing something requires effort, while believing is effortless. We chose an easy option without realizing the huge cost we would have to pay for that. It's easy to believe that we are never going to die. It makes us relaxed, but we have to pay a huge cost. We lose that sense of urgency to use life as an opportunity and become lazy. We develop a habit of deferring the work at hand till tomorrow, a tomorrow that never comes and leaves us to repent when we are on our deathbed. Similarly, we create an image of God based on the widely prevalent stories in the market, and that takes away the urgency to know the true nature of God. The blind faith makes us close our eyes to reality.
It is not possible to carry the burden of belief and be free to explore at the same time. We need to drop the burden of beliefs, and then only can we explore freely the meaning of life. It's not easy to challenge the fundamental beliefs we have been brought up with. All those beliefs make us what we are. If we drop them, we enter into a stage of nothingness, and it's not easy for anybody to handle that nothingness. We identify with the forms. For example, we have a very strong identification with the body. We have a very strong identification with our achievements and possessions. We introduce ourselves with our name and qualifications. If, in reality, we are not body and mind, that means there is no identity, and our entire existence collapses.
The mind wants to be in control, and that's why it will never allow dropping that identity, and it's quite easy for it to play with us. It can make thousands of stories, most of which are confirmed by society around because the mind of almost every member of society is equally insecure and craves control. It's a natural instinct of a weak and insecure person to seek to control others. Wherever we see a strong drive to control, there is some inherent weakness. A strong person would always love freedom and therefore will not snatch anybody's freedom. A weak mind creates stories about self, God, responsibilities, authority, purpose of life, love, happiness, and almost everything. It will go to any existence to create these stories. It has a do-or-die situation. Right now, it is in control and ruling our existence, and the moment we realize the truth, it will just become a tool to serve us. So the mind will try tooth and nail to retain its kingdom.
It's difficult to understand the tricks played by our minds because of our habitual dependence on our minds. If a king is overdependent on some minister, he will not be able to see the manipulation of the minister. The king will have to first become independent. It will have to gain strength. Observation and discrimination are fundamental strengths of the "self". Observation, without the glasses of mind? The moment we observe something, our mind throws suggestions in the form of good or bad, useful or useless, pleasant or unpleasant, right or wrong. Observation means observing the phenomenon without these biases. We meet people and observe their behaviour, not in terms of whether they are good or bad, right or wrong, but to understand where this behaviour is coming from. When the interactions are intense and not contaminated by the judgements, we see the roots of each behaviour lying deep in societal conditioning. We can notice the suffering behind the laughter, pain behind the projection of happiness, the loneliness of the extroverts, the child behind the adult, and the adult behind the child. It's not easy because observation requires a sharp focus on reality, which is often shaken by the turbulence in the mind. It's not easy to observe the reality of a person, what to speak of the eternal reality. Observation, uncontaminated by mind, is the key.
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