Gaining awareness at the level of thoughts is not easy. Ask a greedy person why he is so mad about money, and he will have hundreds of logical reasons to explain his conviction. Similarly, ask a person passing through the phase of depression because of the fear of an examination, and he will have hundreds of reasons to explain. Ask a person who is just playing in the hands of his boss as a tool just to get the validation of being a good employee, a positive appraisal, or a promotion, and he will also be equally convinced. Ask a parent who is worried about sending his child away from home, and he will have hundreds of reasons to justify his worry. Ask a person who feels like a victim in a relationship, and he will again have hundreds of reasons to explain why he feels like a victim.
Whatever we want to believe in, our brain can cook thousands of stories around that. One may keep the windows open, look out at the trees, listen to the birds chirping, look at the sky and the sun, and watch people moving along the roads. However, one can also close the windows, switch on the TV, keep scrolling through different channels, watch any kind of movie on Netflix or Prime, or just scroll through videos on YouTube. If he keeps watching the news channels for hours, and suppose they are covering news about some kidnapping and we keep watching that news for hours, we will start feeling fear. That's because our brain is a master storyteller.
That's what happens to us exactly when we start believing something. Our reality gets twisted. Despite the bright sun outside, we start feeling depressed. Despite all the possibilities and blessings that exist in our lives, we feel like victims. Despite all our intelligence, we feel frightened by the boss and his tantrums. When we close the windows, we fixate on what plays on the screens of our minds. That has nothing to do with reality, but that's a reality for us in that moment. If anybody asks us to open the window at that point in time, we look at that person with disdain. Why is he asking me to open the window when my suffering is so visible on the screen? Why does he not understand that I am suffering and that my suffering is so visible?
That's why only time heals such fears and insecurities. When a person constantly tries to make the movie on the screen play the way he wishes, and that does not happen after trying for so long, at some stage a realisation sinks in, and he tries to take his attention away from the screen. Then he sees the scene outside the window, and his fixated mind does not initially believe it. However, sooner or later, he has to come to terms with reality. How long can a person remain deluded about reality? Circumstances do break the myth of security and comfort.
A still greater challenge lies when a person gets out of the screen. He may be out of that room, roaming around in a park, and may yet carry those memories of those movies and news. His mind may turn back to those memories again and again. Sometimes he may feel like watching some comedy, and at times he may be frightened by the memory of certain horror scenes. The deeper the conditioning of the mind, the more difficult it is to come out of it. Reality is full of all types of possibilities, and one may create magic. A writer may create magic with his words, and a scientist can create magic with his inventions. But none of these would be thrilling. There is no instant pleasure like getting intoxicated with liquor or eating sugar. A weak soul can't wait that long and becomes addicted to getting the joy, and gets trapped again in the objects of pleasure and again closes the windows and starts watching the TV. It's not possible to break this cycle unless a person sees through the futility of all these thrills and focuses on exploration. An exploration that is not driven by thrill, but by a genuine curiosity to know the larger and to unite with that.
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