How do we change? We make thousands of choices every day, and each one is driven by our belief system. Suppose a person feels that money has great value in life. Every decision he makes during the day will be driven by his belief. He will choose a career that offers a hefty package, marry someone from a rich family, and try to befriend people with a lot of money. Slowly, he will be surrounded by people who have a similar belief system, and the belief about the value of money will look all the more real. If a poor person tells him that life is wonderful without money, he will simply reject that idea and have hundreds of examples to cite in response.
Similarly, if a person believes in a particular version of spirituality, their choices will naturally align with that version. He will join the spiritual organisation or guru that promotes that version of spirituality. He will discuss more and more with those kinds of people. He will read books of that type. Slowly, over time, his belief in that version of reality will be strengthened, and if someone offers a different perspective, he will reject it outright.
Similarly, someone believes that life is all about comfort and pleasure. He will make friends with the people who have a similar belief system. He will plan trips with those kinds of people, and slowly his surroundings will be full of them. He will have enough posts on Facebook to compare and enough shares on WhatsApp and Instagram to get motivated to have more such comforts and pleasures. You try to give a different perspective to such a person, and you will be his biggest enemy. His reaction would be like that of a baby who feels threatened when someone tries to take that toy from his grip, which could be very harmful to the baby.
The ego is constantly busy fortifying itself. Every choice we make during the day conforms to our belief system. How will we ever see reality? Most people see reality through the lens of disasters and misfortune. When their belief system is shaken by the circumstances. When we make meaning of life around family, and the children refuse to even meet us in our old age, or when we make the meaning of life around some comforts, and we develop a handicap making us incapable of enjoying that comfort. When we get fixated on a particular variety of spiritual experiences, and the psychiatrist tells us that we have developed a mental disorder.
Ideally, we should be open to examination. Why do we need a disaster to tell us the difference between the real and imaginary? Why can't we see the reality when everything is all right? Because of laziness? Because of a very strong drive to "become" or "achieve"? Maybe our inner hollowness is so wide that we are in a hurry to make some meaning of life and pursue that. Maybe we are too lazy to spend time and energy to understand the meaning of life. We think that we are very special and by using our "winning formula", we will be able to be the winner in the race. We fail to realise why one part of the consciousness would be so superior to the other. Why would consciousness have a race among its own parts? It would naturally like every little part to collaborate and co-create. Why would one part of that consciousness be the winner and the other be the loser? Would we like our own kids to compete against each other? Or would we like to co-create and collaborate? Then, why do we hurry? Why don't we spend time understanding the meaning of life? Why do parents pass on their faulty understanding of life to their kids and make them suffer all through their lives?
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