All of us grow in different ways and develop different belief systems. We all live in the same world, and yet everybody is so convinced of their own worldview. He picks what suits him to justify his own worldview. The takeaway of all the participants from the same meeting or conference will be different. The same presentation, going on stage, will be perceived in many different ways by different people sitting in the audience. As if infinite FM stations are transmitting the content, and depending upon the frequency we want to tune in to, we get to listen to the songs.
Will a divisive mind be able to tune in to anything beyond that division? Will a person who strongly believes in rights and wrongs ever be able to look beyond what he considers to be right? Would a person who believes in God ever be able to examine the possibility of there being no God? It seems quite difficult. When the brain focuses on something, it misses the rest of the details. When I am writing this blog, I am focusing on the screen of my laptop and therefore unable to observe the rest of the things in the room. Similarly, a divisive mind ignores the details that do not fit well with the divisions. People will read the Bhagwat Geeta and the Ramayana and draw their own conclusions, mostly the conclusions that suit their belief systems.
I, too, had many such divisions, in the form of rights and wrongs, very strongly built in my mind, as a result of the conditioning since childhood. It so happened because I was not aware when these divisions were being hardwired into my brain. I could not examine the contextual relevance of those divisions when these divisions were being hardwired. While we are on the ground, the divisions between the nations look very real. There is a need for a visa, and the boundaries among the nations appear quite real. While we fly, we realize that there are no real boundaries between countries. When we come back to the ground, we again start operating within the boundaries, but with a realization of the context. We realize that the boundaries are political and not geographical. Similarly, the conditioned mind creates a very strong division between "self" and "others," always trying to carve out a territory for itself that it may rule. It tries to carve out a domain that it wants to champion. However, when we have heart-to-heart conversations, we realize that there is no such division. The thoughts flow from one brain to the other, back and forth, and at some stage, we can't really identify who they really belong to, as if they have their own independent existence away from "I" and "You".
Can we live without these divisions? The answer lies in examining what these divisions and belief systems are doing to us. The moment somebody believes in anything, isn't he moving away from reality? If I believe in the goodness of my friend, can I ever look at his faults? If I believe in my "inligence", will I ever be able to look at my "stupidity"? If I believe in "destiny", would I ever be able to exercise the "free will" I have? I think looking at reality requires effort, and having done so and acknowledged it requires even greater effort, because course correction becomes inevitable. Belief is quite comfortable. Believing that we are "intelligent" is easy, while being aware of our "stupidity" first creates discomfort. Once we acknowledge this, it requires effort to take measures to shed stupidity and allow intelligence to flourish. Life is not for choosing easy options. The easiest thing is death, where there is no effort. We are born to live, and living means constant efforts and constant growth. Isn't "believing" akin to death and "examining" akin to life? Aren't "divisions" akin to death and "oneness" akin to life? Why would any sane mind choose "death" over "life"?
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