I’m really looking to ramp this blog up. By that, I mean seriously working much harder on it. By that, I mean putting in conscious effort to create meaningful and lasting content that truly makes an impact. I like where I’ve taken this blog in the last couple of months, and I wish to continue that trend, only with more focus and intensity. I feel that blogging is a real contribution I can make to this world by expanding people’s minds and hearts to new ideas that may or may not be outside their comfort zones. I really want to make a difference in people’s lives. That is my main motivation. I want to challenge people to think outside their box and to move beyond close-mindedness into a new way of thinking that allows for multiple perspectives. This will, in turn, create a field of perspectives from which to make decisions more accurately, rather than relying on one context alone. Challenging? Yes. Impossible? Certainly not.
There are so many perspectives you can take when looking at reality. There has to be millions if not billions. Your perspective, or context, is what defines how you approach certain situations. For example, if you are a Christian, you may believe that everything that happens in this life is a result of God’s will or other divine being. So you surrender your life to a higher power and live knowing that whatever happens, some greater intelligence meant for it to happen. How would that affect your life? I would say that it would absolve you of some personal responsibility and make you feel good inside, but at the same time it would make you feel that you are not in control of your own life, that some super-intelligent being is. A super-intelligent being you’ve never seen or heard from (unless of course you have). Another part of Christianity is the concept of Hell. That if you do certain things, after you die, you will be placed into a place with torture, pain, suffering, and the likes until the end of time. How loving of our compassionate God, huh? Using fear to control the masses. Sounds more like human planning, not divine. But if it works for you, adopt it.
On the other end of the spectrum, you could adopt a perspective that says that there is no God, no afterlife, and that this life is all we have. Another fear-based context, but a valid one nonetheless. If you never know when you are going to die and this is the only life you have, it would make sense to try to prolong it as long as possible as long as you are enjoying yourself. Otherwise, it would be best just to put an end to this awful nightmare. Because there will be no suffering beyond life, ending it is a guaranteed way to end suffering. At least from this perspective. Another thing is that there will be no consequences after death for your actions on Earth. It may feel liberating, but deep down most of us still have a moral code and would not harm others just because we feel that after we’re dead, nobody can hurt us.
There are beliefs that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. That there is no such thing as death. That life is nothing but a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves. That it is simply just a ride that is fun, for awhile. That one day, when we supposedly “die,” we will finally see the true nature of our existence. We will still exist, in some spiritual form and still be able to develop our consciousness even after our “avatar,” or physical body, dies. This perspective seems to be very popular in the spirituality movements and creates the notion that we are all one and that we should cooperate instead of fight, that life should be enjoyable for all, because we are all the same, all together in this experience. And what a wonderful experience it is. It gives us a feeling of unconditional security, meaning that no matter what happens, we are safe. It is a very empowering belief system that definitely benefits humanity, rather than detract from it.
There are tons of belief systems, and tons of times when each one will work better than another. Practice makes perfect in these areas. What’s better for a certain situation will be up to you to decide. But calibrating your decisions over a long period of time will eventually lead to becoming an expert on which context to use in which situation to the best effectiveness that you can perceive. It is really an experiential procedure that takes a lot of trial and error. Of course, you may find one belief system works for most of the situations in your life and that only on rare occasions do you have to step outside that box and into another. And that’s great. It’s all about living to be the people we want to be. But being aware of all the other belief systems is important because you never know when they will come in handy.
I’d like to say you should do this process gradually. Don’t try out 10 belief systems in one month. Take your time to really absorb each one and take the good and leave the bad. That is, take what resonates with you, and drop what doesn’t. There are no rules that dictate what you must believe. But it is better to believe things that you actually feel are true than to try and convince yourself of something you feel to be untrue. And you have to immerse yourself in new beliefs. You have to truly feel that you believe them, otherwise, you will just know of them, but not truly understand them. I have to say that no belief system is entirely wrong, but no one belief system is entirely right either. Reality is perceived through filters (i.e. our senses, our beliefs). It all depends which filters you are using that determines what kind of reality you will experience. Of course, we all live in the same reality, but our differing beliefs create for an interesting variety that makes the world different in every being’s eyes. And that can make for some pretty interesting conversations. And wars, but hopefully one day we’ll get past all that. I believe it.
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Hey Andrew, this is a great post. I was going to write a post about trying out different ‘lenses’ of reality… or different perspectives, to match whatever situation you find yourself in, that way you could be able to adapt quicker and deal with unexpected ‘happenings’ in your experience as they pop up.
Anyway, just wanted to say keep up the great posts mang!
Cheers
-Mitch
exploringinfinity.com
Hi Andrew,
I enjoyed reading this post. It was thoughtful and open to different perspectives. Keep up the good work!
Regards,
Adele
safehavenhealing.net