Tony Fahkry's Blog - Posts Tagged "thoughts"
Find Yourself and Be That
“Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.” – St. Augustine
In the quest to discover one’s potential, many people seem to be wandering aimlessly these days, dazed by a sense of confusion. Numerous self-help books line the shelves of bookstores proclaiming the latest movement or program to heal you in thirty days. Self-help groupies seek solace in New Age wisdom only to discover what is already contained within – the source of all wisdom.
I often ponder the number of people who follow the advice echoed within the pages of a self-help book, a blog article or seminar. Given we live in what is arguably the most prosperous period in the world’s history, why have we lost our sense of self? This confusion has given rise to a popular meme now used synonymously throughout the Western world known as first world problems.
I affirm that our maladies may be attributed to straying from our life purpose; while similarly succumbing to external influences. The young are inundated with a surplus of information nowadays, fuelled by technological advances that have allowed us to stay connected, especially via social media. In many ways our connections are nothing more than empty posters on an electronic billboard which serve to remind us that we belong. And yet, we have an inner longing for social acceptance. It is wired into our DNA to be a part of a tribe.
The following points are what I consider to be the quintessential qualities for reconnecting with your essential self. I have chosen to list as many points possible, while opting on the side of brevity to provide you with a detailed list.
“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” – Aldous Huxley
1. Accept Yourself: Complete acceptance of oneself entails acknowledgement of your wholeness with all your imperfections, foibles and insecurities. You cannot disown unfavourable aspects of yourself and seek to highlight positive qualities. This might be deemed treading a fine line toward narcissism.
2. Know Thyself: This does not entail knowing your likes or dislikes. Rather it is a call to discover the true essence of your spiritual self. Who is the real you? What are your true motivations? What kindles your soul? What are your passions?
3. Discard the False Self: Many people have created a false sense of self – an image of who they think they are. It is believed the mind creates a false persona epitomised by the ego to keep it alive. Unfortunately life events (tragedy or loss) may disrupt this image and suddenly one is faced with the task of re-examining their sense of self, since the illusory shadow is shattered.
4. Do Not Identify With Thoughts: I’ve written extensively in recent times about not identifying with your thoughts. Do not allow your thoughts to give you an impression of your real self. Thoughts come and go, yet the essence of who you are is unchanging and authentic. Connect with that part of your nature.
5. Surrender Addictions: Many people suffer from controlling addictions to things or people. Addictions extend to habitual thoughts which occupy valuable space in the mind and body system. They deprive you of energy and disconnect you from your precious self. Let go of that which does not serve you – drop it like a hot piece of coal.
6. Stop Seeking Validation: Let go of the need to prove yourself to others. You do not require validation from others to prove your worthiness; even from loved ones. No one or nothing can offer you the authentication you long for, other than yourself. True validation comes from the core of your being.
7. Find Time For Silence: Find time to be alone every now and again, particularly in nature. Exercising outdoors allows you to reconnect with yourself in a tranquil setting among nature. Being outdoors harmonises both mind and body and energises the soul.
8. Connect With Your Heart And Mind: In my book The Power to Navigate Life, I have titled a chapter Connect With Your Heart And Mind since I believe many of us live life from the level of the mind. We get stuck in left brain logic, since we were taught to reason the world through logic alone. It has been demonstrated in experiments that the heart’s electrical impulse is 40 to 60 times greater than the brain. The heart often feels or intuits things well before the brain has time to make sense of it.
9. Accept The Perfection Of Life: There is no need to change anything ‘out there’ since the heart of your troubles is always contained within. As you tend to your inner landscape, your external reality inherently harmonises with your inner world. As the Hermetic aphorism states, “As within, so without.”
10. Focus on Yourself First: Tend to your inner world and nurture it through self-examination and introspection. Invariably when things go wrong in life, knowing that you can remain peaceful and safe is reassuring. It is like a ship in stormy weather – nothing can destabilise a ship when it has a strong hull. It floats through troubled waters allowing the raging storm to take it where it needs to, knowing in due course it will find refuge in safe harbour.
11. Relationships Are Vital Lessons: What we loathe in others we disapprove in ourselves. I wrote about this in a previous article called, Relationships Are Mirrors of Yourself. Therefore at a deeper level your difficult relationships are a call to heal an aspect of yourself which you are at war with. Embrace the lesson by allowing painful memories to move through you without becoming invested in any harmful emotions.
12. Connect With Purpose: Your purpose may or may not be tied to your career. Your purpose is your life’s calling – your spiritual truth. It is the deeper question which we beckon of ourselves – why am I here on Earth? Why have I been born during this period in time and what have I come here to become? You discover your purpose by ‘doing’ not by sitting around waiting for it to land in your lap. Pursue anything which fuels your soul and slowly but surely your purpose will be made known to you. Purpose requires momentum, hard work, commitment and sacrifice. People who feel ‘lost’ have disconnected with their purpose.
In the quest to discover one’s potential, many people seem to be wandering aimlessly these days, dazed by a sense of confusion. Numerous self-help books line the shelves of bookstores proclaiming the latest movement or program to heal you in thirty days. Self-help groupies seek solace in New Age wisdom only to discover what is already contained within – the source of all wisdom.
I often ponder the number of people who follow the advice echoed within the pages of a self-help book, a blog article or seminar. Given we live in what is arguably the most prosperous period in the world’s history, why have we lost our sense of self? This confusion has given rise to a popular meme now used synonymously throughout the Western world known as first world problems.
I affirm that our maladies may be attributed to straying from our life purpose; while similarly succumbing to external influences. The young are inundated with a surplus of information nowadays, fuelled by technological advances that have allowed us to stay connected, especially via social media. In many ways our connections are nothing more than empty posters on an electronic billboard which serve to remind us that we belong. And yet, we have an inner longing for social acceptance. It is wired into our DNA to be a part of a tribe.
The following points are what I consider to be the quintessential qualities for reconnecting with your essential self. I have chosen to list as many points possible, while opting on the side of brevity to provide you with a detailed list.
“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” – Aldous Huxley
1. Accept Yourself: Complete acceptance of oneself entails acknowledgement of your wholeness with all your imperfections, foibles and insecurities. You cannot disown unfavourable aspects of yourself and seek to highlight positive qualities. This might be deemed treading a fine line toward narcissism.
2. Know Thyself: This does not entail knowing your likes or dislikes. Rather it is a call to discover the true essence of your spiritual self. Who is the real you? What are your true motivations? What kindles your soul? What are your passions?
3. Discard the False Self: Many people have created a false sense of self – an image of who they think they are. It is believed the mind creates a false persona epitomised by the ego to keep it alive. Unfortunately life events (tragedy or loss) may disrupt this image and suddenly one is faced with the task of re-examining their sense of self, since the illusory shadow is shattered.
4. Do Not Identify With Thoughts: I’ve written extensively in recent times about not identifying with your thoughts. Do not allow your thoughts to give you an impression of your real self. Thoughts come and go, yet the essence of who you are is unchanging and authentic. Connect with that part of your nature.
5. Surrender Addictions: Many people suffer from controlling addictions to things or people. Addictions extend to habitual thoughts which occupy valuable space in the mind and body system. They deprive you of energy and disconnect you from your precious self. Let go of that which does not serve you – drop it like a hot piece of coal.
6. Stop Seeking Validation: Let go of the need to prove yourself to others. You do not require validation from others to prove your worthiness; even from loved ones. No one or nothing can offer you the authentication you long for, other than yourself. True validation comes from the core of your being.
7. Find Time For Silence: Find time to be alone every now and again, particularly in nature. Exercising outdoors allows you to reconnect with yourself in a tranquil setting among nature. Being outdoors harmonises both mind and body and energises the soul.
8. Connect With Your Heart And Mind: In my book The Power to Navigate Life, I have titled a chapter Connect With Your Heart And Mind since I believe many of us live life from the level of the mind. We get stuck in left brain logic, since we were taught to reason the world through logic alone. It has been demonstrated in experiments that the heart’s electrical impulse is 40 to 60 times greater than the brain. The heart often feels or intuits things well before the brain has time to make sense of it.
9. Accept The Perfection Of Life: There is no need to change anything ‘out there’ since the heart of your troubles is always contained within. As you tend to your inner landscape, your external reality inherently harmonises with your inner world. As the Hermetic aphorism states, “As within, so without.”
10. Focus on Yourself First: Tend to your inner world and nurture it through self-examination and introspection. Invariably when things go wrong in life, knowing that you can remain peaceful and safe is reassuring. It is like a ship in stormy weather – nothing can destabilise a ship when it has a strong hull. It floats through troubled waters allowing the raging storm to take it where it needs to, knowing in due course it will find refuge in safe harbour.
11. Relationships Are Vital Lessons: What we loathe in others we disapprove in ourselves. I wrote about this in a previous article called, Relationships Are Mirrors of Yourself. Therefore at a deeper level your difficult relationships are a call to heal an aspect of yourself which you are at war with. Embrace the lesson by allowing painful memories to move through you without becoming invested in any harmful emotions.
12. Connect With Purpose: Your purpose may or may not be tied to your career. Your purpose is your life’s calling – your spiritual truth. It is the deeper question which we beckon of ourselves – why am I here on Earth? Why have I been born during this period in time and what have I come here to become? You discover your purpose by ‘doing’ not by sitting around waiting for it to land in your lap. Pursue anything which fuels your soul and slowly but surely your purpose will be made known to you. Purpose requires momentum, hard work, commitment and sacrifice. People who feel ‘lost’ have disconnected with their purpose.
Five Ways to Empower Your Thoughts
“What the mind can conceive and believe, and the heart desire, you can achieve.” - Norman Vincent Peale
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it,” remarked the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
If you were to read no further than that line, this article has served you well and imparted what is needed to direct your thoughts. Mastery of one’s mental faculty is not an elaborate undertaking, comprised of complex rituals. It is recognising that thoughts come and go from the mind, comparable to radio signals that deliver songs to your music device.
They are similar and yet dissimilar. Unlike a music device which can be turned off, or the stations changed to suit your preference, thoughts are fixed. That is, they are part of your mental landscape. You cannot stop thoughts passing through your mind, although you can reduce the intensity of the thoughts by remaining attentive to them as they arise.
How do you empower your thoughts and why should you care? You know the expression, “Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds. Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything.” And there lies the answer – thoughts build character.
Your thoughts shape your identity – those fragments of mind which pass through your brain 70,000 times a day, create the fundamental person that is you. If you are not convinced of this, recall your last angry thought and note how it affected your physiology. Man’s orientation toward stress nowadays stems from recurring restless thoughts which become stuck in a feedback loop.
Use the following points to empower your thoughts without succumbing to the incessant inner dialogue. I encourage you not to be besieged by thoughts since they do not happen to you. Thoughts arise through you, as long as you remain in a state of equilibrium.
“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.” - Helen Keller
1. Observe Your Thoughts: The first step to empower your thoughts is to realise disempowering thoughts are part of your mental landscape. Change cannot take place in the midst of uncertainty. We must measure the impact of our thoughts to modify our default setting. Consider your answers to the following questions. When do disempowering thoughts appear? When you’re tired, hungry, or emotional? What is the theme of the thoughts? Are they self-deprecating, shameful, or resentful? Attentiveness is the act of triggering consciousness to witness thoughts, without creating the accompanying storyline. In his book, Simply Notice, author Peter Francis Dziuban states, “Similarly, just by being the simple, clear awareness you naturally, normally are, the fog of excessive thinking evaporates too.”
2. Practice Mindfulness: Mindfulness means being aware of your thoughts by bringing them to the forefront of your mind. You need not examine every thought. Instead, you become awake and mindful of disempowering thoughts as they appear, intending to trip the circuit before they become runaway thoughts. You refuse to accept your thoughts as real, knowing they constitute your mind’s biological landscape. You recognise they are conversations taking place inside your head, that naturally arise and fall. Their ebb and flow is transient, without a need to attach meaning to them. In his book, Positive Intelligence, author Shirzad Chamine states, “The most effective strategy for weakening your Saboteurs is to simply observe and label your thoughts or feelings every time you notice them.” The author implies by perceiving your thoughts is enough to disarm the inner critic, which we are predisposed to feeding.
3. Navigate Your Thoughts: Drop the relentless stories which play out in your mind. Why do we accept certain thoughts while discounting others? Thoughts are those fleeting episodes which come and go with no agenda. We are quick to question the thoughts of others simply because we cannot hear them, so why contemplate your own? Second, step back from your thoughts by refusing to become embroiled in them. Certain thoughts are prone to last longer than others, yet that does not mean you should give them more attention. To create a storyline based on thoughts which periodically pass through the mind is not conducive to your mental wellbeing. By accepting thoughts as real you fuel them with energy, like pouring kerosene on a burning flame. Witness them and stay detached so they don’t spiral out of control. As you practice this skill, your brain becomes adept at managing such thoughts.
4. Practice self-compassion: Self-compassion invites you to develop an attentive and sympathetic relationship with self. It is challenging to uphold empowering thoughts when the mind is turned on itself, amid the backdrop of incessant chatter. In her book, Self-compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind, author Kristin Neff states, “Compassion is, by definition, relational. Compassion literally means “to suffer with,” which implies a basic mutuality in the experience of suffering. The emotion of compassion springs from the recognition that the human experience is imperfect.” Witness your inner dialogue when life does not go according to plan. Many people continue to perpetuate a sabotaging inner dialogue acquired during childhood. Self-compassion is effective for enhancing self-esteem by reinforcing the image of a secure self.
5. Reframe Old Beliefs: Your beliefs hold the key to empowering thoughts as they represent your accumulated experiences. The sum of your thoughts decide your reality. As a result, your perceptions form the lens in which your deeply held beliefs are realised. It makes sense that your attention be directed towards your wishes. Far too many people waste countless hours recounting what they don’t want. Whilst merit is obtained in knowing what you don’t want, the contrasting view invites you to focus on your desires to bring them to life. Consider destructive thoughts as a car sliding out of control. Your task is to command your thoughts by directing it in the desired direction. As you become proficient at this, your thoughts are less likely to become uncontrollable.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it,” remarked the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
If you were to read no further than that line, this article has served you well and imparted what is needed to direct your thoughts. Mastery of one’s mental faculty is not an elaborate undertaking, comprised of complex rituals. It is recognising that thoughts come and go from the mind, comparable to radio signals that deliver songs to your music device.
They are similar and yet dissimilar. Unlike a music device which can be turned off, or the stations changed to suit your preference, thoughts are fixed. That is, they are part of your mental landscape. You cannot stop thoughts passing through your mind, although you can reduce the intensity of the thoughts by remaining attentive to them as they arise.
How do you empower your thoughts and why should you care? You know the expression, “Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds. Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything.” And there lies the answer – thoughts build character.
Your thoughts shape your identity – those fragments of mind which pass through your brain 70,000 times a day, create the fundamental person that is you. If you are not convinced of this, recall your last angry thought and note how it affected your physiology. Man’s orientation toward stress nowadays stems from recurring restless thoughts which become stuck in a feedback loop.
Use the following points to empower your thoughts without succumbing to the incessant inner dialogue. I encourage you not to be besieged by thoughts since they do not happen to you. Thoughts arise through you, as long as you remain in a state of equilibrium.
“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.” - Helen Keller
1. Observe Your Thoughts: The first step to empower your thoughts is to realise disempowering thoughts are part of your mental landscape. Change cannot take place in the midst of uncertainty. We must measure the impact of our thoughts to modify our default setting. Consider your answers to the following questions. When do disempowering thoughts appear? When you’re tired, hungry, or emotional? What is the theme of the thoughts? Are they self-deprecating, shameful, or resentful? Attentiveness is the act of triggering consciousness to witness thoughts, without creating the accompanying storyline. In his book, Simply Notice, author Peter Francis Dziuban states, “Similarly, just by being the simple, clear awareness you naturally, normally are, the fog of excessive thinking evaporates too.”
2. Practice Mindfulness: Mindfulness means being aware of your thoughts by bringing them to the forefront of your mind. You need not examine every thought. Instead, you become awake and mindful of disempowering thoughts as they appear, intending to trip the circuit before they become runaway thoughts. You refuse to accept your thoughts as real, knowing they constitute your mind’s biological landscape. You recognise they are conversations taking place inside your head, that naturally arise and fall. Their ebb and flow is transient, without a need to attach meaning to them. In his book, Positive Intelligence, author Shirzad Chamine states, “The most effective strategy for weakening your Saboteurs is to simply observe and label your thoughts or feelings every time you notice them.” The author implies by perceiving your thoughts is enough to disarm the inner critic, which we are predisposed to feeding.
3. Navigate Your Thoughts: Drop the relentless stories which play out in your mind. Why do we accept certain thoughts while discounting others? Thoughts are those fleeting episodes which come and go with no agenda. We are quick to question the thoughts of others simply because we cannot hear them, so why contemplate your own? Second, step back from your thoughts by refusing to become embroiled in them. Certain thoughts are prone to last longer than others, yet that does not mean you should give them more attention. To create a storyline based on thoughts which periodically pass through the mind is not conducive to your mental wellbeing. By accepting thoughts as real you fuel them with energy, like pouring kerosene on a burning flame. Witness them and stay detached so they don’t spiral out of control. As you practice this skill, your brain becomes adept at managing such thoughts.
4. Practice self-compassion: Self-compassion invites you to develop an attentive and sympathetic relationship with self. It is challenging to uphold empowering thoughts when the mind is turned on itself, amid the backdrop of incessant chatter. In her book, Self-compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind, author Kristin Neff states, “Compassion is, by definition, relational. Compassion literally means “to suffer with,” which implies a basic mutuality in the experience of suffering. The emotion of compassion springs from the recognition that the human experience is imperfect.” Witness your inner dialogue when life does not go according to plan. Many people continue to perpetuate a sabotaging inner dialogue acquired during childhood. Self-compassion is effective for enhancing self-esteem by reinforcing the image of a secure self.
5. Reframe Old Beliefs: Your beliefs hold the key to empowering thoughts as they represent your accumulated experiences. The sum of your thoughts decide your reality. As a result, your perceptions form the lens in which your deeply held beliefs are realised. It makes sense that your attention be directed towards your wishes. Far too many people waste countless hours recounting what they don’t want. Whilst merit is obtained in knowing what you don’t want, the contrasting view invites you to focus on your desires to bring them to life. Consider destructive thoughts as a car sliding out of control. Your task is to command your thoughts by directing it in the desired direction. As you become proficient at this, your thoughts are less likely to become uncontrollable.
The Truth Will Set You Free
“Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.” - Leo Tolstoy
“I wish to become a teacher of the Truth.”
“Are you prepared to be ridiculed, ignored and starving till you are forty-five?”
“I am. But tell me: what will happen after I am forty-five?”
“You will have grown accustomed to it.”
This short tale symbolises that while we desire an authentic connection to our real self, pursuing the Truth may not be the charmed existence we hope for.
Your Truth is the source of all wisdom – every person retains their own Truth while no two are the same. To seek the Truth means seeing past the illusory thoughts of what life should be. “We perceive the world as we are, not as it is,” said Anaïs Nin. To see past the mind’s self-constructed bias, we surrender thoughts which perpetuate this distortion.
The Truth is relative to what you observe and what you hope to see. No two people have the same experience, given subjective reality.
It was the late Dr David Hawkins, a renowned psychiatrist and spiritual teacher who wrote in Truth vs Falsehood: How to Tell the Difference: “The human mind, by virtue of its innate structure, is blind to its limitations and innocently gullible. Everyone is the victim of the ignorance and limitation of human ego.”
Living in the material world means we are unable to escape the vicissitudes of sweeping changes ushered through life. From the moment of conception we are indoctrinated with rules, beliefs and ideas not of our choosing. I mean that in the kindest possible way – we are at the mercy of those we trust to reason the world for us.
Yet many of these beliefs remain unchallenged throughout our life. We need only interact with adults who behave in a regressed, child-like state to notice how they perceive the world through an automated lens.
Still, these same people claim to know the Truth, “Everyone secretly believes that their view of the world is correct and any other is wrong. Thereby opinion becomes promoted to “ostensible” fact and pseudovalidity,” states Hawkins.
So what is Truth at its core?
To live the Truth means to live according to your authentic self. To think and reason the world without other people’s thoughts to dominate your mental landscape. Popular culture is lined with the herd mentality espoused through: mainstream music, pop culture, political influences and inauthentic leadership. These are ways in which our minds are subdued into a distorted illusion of what is real.
In his book, Your (Re) Defining Moments, author Dennis Merritt Jones states, “We have to enter into unknowing to discover the truth, because there is no room for unknowing in a mind that believes it already knows the truth.”
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” - Marcus Aurelius
I am reminded of the Zen teaching, "Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" We must empty our minds of inaccurate distortions to discover the Truth – a busy mind cannot gain new information when it overflows with ideas.
How do we arrive at this state of emptiness?
In an earlier article I affirmed everything is relative to the perceiver. For example, you do not see the sun where it is now since it has moved. You see it where it was eight and a half minutes ago, given the Earth’s approximate distance from it. Subjective reality asserts other people’s perception differs to yours since no two people share the same experience.
Who is right? Who upholds the Truth?
To take a different view, British-born philosopher Alan Watts states, “To “know” reality you cannot stand outside it and define it; you must enter into it, be it and feel it.”
We must go beyond the self-created illusion if we wish to penetrate the Truth while letting go of thoughts that no longer serve us.
Speak your Truth, trust your Truth and live your Truth.
Be who you came here to be, irrespective of your religious denominations or cultural beliefs – live your Truth at the deepest level. Embody it, even if you take a lifetime to discover, it will have been worth it.
Refuse to be indoctrinated with someone else’s Truth – those same people are prone to regurgitate knowledge and have nothing new to offer the world. Such distortions will consume you until you honour your Truth by giving it life – yield to it. Whilst disheartening, the ego delivers a false impression of security as it consolidates its hold on you. The illusion keeps you from realising your authentic self.
“Truth and Reality are identical and eternally present merely waiting discovery,” affirms Dr Hawkins.
The Truth sets you free since it liberates you from a self-imposed prison disposed to minimise your potential. The wisdom of the soul is your real connection to your spiritual source – trust this connection to the Truth.
Confront the Truth with compelling certainty, an open mind and a sincere heart – then can you claim to have a command over it. Don’t allow the egoic voice to drown out your inner spirit. Reason and logic will bargain and banter to convince you the Truth is unattainable – don’t argue with it.
The Dutch philosopher Gerardus van der Leeuw reminds us, “The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
Embody the Truth in your obligations, whether it be through your thoughts, actions or words. The world needs more original thinkers than naysayers who conform to popular opinion.
As James Blanchard Cisneros reminds us, “Once you awaken you will have no interest in judging those who sleep.”
“I wish to become a teacher of the Truth.”
“Are you prepared to be ridiculed, ignored and starving till you are forty-five?”
“I am. But tell me: what will happen after I am forty-five?”
“You will have grown accustomed to it.”
This short tale symbolises that while we desire an authentic connection to our real self, pursuing the Truth may not be the charmed existence we hope for.
Your Truth is the source of all wisdom – every person retains their own Truth while no two are the same. To seek the Truth means seeing past the illusory thoughts of what life should be. “We perceive the world as we are, not as it is,” said Anaïs Nin. To see past the mind’s self-constructed bias, we surrender thoughts which perpetuate this distortion.
The Truth is relative to what you observe and what you hope to see. No two people have the same experience, given subjective reality.
It was the late Dr David Hawkins, a renowned psychiatrist and spiritual teacher who wrote in Truth vs Falsehood: How to Tell the Difference: “The human mind, by virtue of its innate structure, is blind to its limitations and innocently gullible. Everyone is the victim of the ignorance and limitation of human ego.”
Living in the material world means we are unable to escape the vicissitudes of sweeping changes ushered through life. From the moment of conception we are indoctrinated with rules, beliefs and ideas not of our choosing. I mean that in the kindest possible way – we are at the mercy of those we trust to reason the world for us.
Yet many of these beliefs remain unchallenged throughout our life. We need only interact with adults who behave in a regressed, child-like state to notice how they perceive the world through an automated lens.
Still, these same people claim to know the Truth, “Everyone secretly believes that their view of the world is correct and any other is wrong. Thereby opinion becomes promoted to “ostensible” fact and pseudovalidity,” states Hawkins.
So what is Truth at its core?
To live the Truth means to live according to your authentic self. To think and reason the world without other people’s thoughts to dominate your mental landscape. Popular culture is lined with the herd mentality espoused through: mainstream music, pop culture, political influences and inauthentic leadership. These are ways in which our minds are subdued into a distorted illusion of what is real.
In his book, Your (Re) Defining Moments, author Dennis Merritt Jones states, “We have to enter into unknowing to discover the truth, because there is no room for unknowing in a mind that believes it already knows the truth.”
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” - Marcus Aurelius
I am reminded of the Zen teaching, "Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" We must empty our minds of inaccurate distortions to discover the Truth – a busy mind cannot gain new information when it overflows with ideas.
How do we arrive at this state of emptiness?
In an earlier article I affirmed everything is relative to the perceiver. For example, you do not see the sun where it is now since it has moved. You see it where it was eight and a half minutes ago, given the Earth’s approximate distance from it. Subjective reality asserts other people’s perception differs to yours since no two people share the same experience.
Who is right? Who upholds the Truth?
To take a different view, British-born philosopher Alan Watts states, “To “know” reality you cannot stand outside it and define it; you must enter into it, be it and feel it.”
We must go beyond the self-created illusion if we wish to penetrate the Truth while letting go of thoughts that no longer serve us.
Speak your Truth, trust your Truth and live your Truth.
Be who you came here to be, irrespective of your religious denominations or cultural beliefs – live your Truth at the deepest level. Embody it, even if you take a lifetime to discover, it will have been worth it.
Refuse to be indoctrinated with someone else’s Truth – those same people are prone to regurgitate knowledge and have nothing new to offer the world. Such distortions will consume you until you honour your Truth by giving it life – yield to it. Whilst disheartening, the ego delivers a false impression of security as it consolidates its hold on you. The illusion keeps you from realising your authentic self.
“Truth and Reality are identical and eternally present merely waiting discovery,” affirms Dr Hawkins.
The Truth sets you free since it liberates you from a self-imposed prison disposed to minimise your potential. The wisdom of the soul is your real connection to your spiritual source – trust this connection to the Truth.
Confront the Truth with compelling certainty, an open mind and a sincere heart – then can you claim to have a command over it. Don’t allow the egoic voice to drown out your inner spirit. Reason and logic will bargain and banter to convince you the Truth is unattainable – don’t argue with it.
The Dutch philosopher Gerardus van der Leeuw reminds us, “The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
Embody the Truth in your obligations, whether it be through your thoughts, actions or words. The world needs more original thinkers than naysayers who conform to popular opinion.
As James Blanchard Cisneros reminds us, “Once you awaken you will have no interest in judging those who sleep.”
