CosmicSandBox’s Weblog

We are always taking in information from everywhere, including our own repetitious thoughts, and most of it isn’t even true. If that weren’t bad enough, we act on that information blindly accepting the information as true. Then we process it by judging the information as good or bad, useful or worthless.

Acting on thoughts about information that may or may not be true is the cause of 99% of the suffering in our world. We are fabulous story tellers, and we weave epic stories that would make Hollywood jealous. We have a novel in our heads about who we are, who are parents are and what they did to us, about the world and what it is doing to us, and why or why not we can’t do anything to change it.

If we could stop ourselves for a few moments, jump out of the squirrel cage of our “monkey minds” and ask ourselves one question: “Is it true? Can I absolutely know it is true?” we would be shocked at what our answer would be. That’s because the answer would be “NO.”

We are all reluctant to admit that because: 1. We love to be right all the time; and 2. We can’t justify our feelings if they are based on a falsehood. If someone treats us badly in our opinion, we can think they don’t love us or they want to hurt us. Unless we come right out and tell them how we feel and ask them why they acted a certain way, we just believing our own very subjective thoughts. We ignore the fact that we’re the only ones that can make ourselves feel anything by the stories we tell ourselves.

Once I acknowledge that maybe the story I’m telling myself isn’t true, I open a whole new paradigm of possibilities as to what may be the truth in the situation. Many times we find out that someone’s behavior towards us had nothing at all to do with us. It’s possible they weren’t feeling good or they had just had some bad news. Unless we ask the person how they are feeling or what they are thinking, we can only assume. We when do that we make “an ass out of you and me”.

“To thine own self be true.” and “Know thyself.” are famous quotes. We TRULY can only know ourselves, which takes most of us a lifetime! So asking ourselves if something is true or not as we go along judging everything in our lives, can be a life saving and life changing tool. It literally changes the whole dynamic between people.

When we assume we know what another is thinking or believing, we react to them based on our beliefs. We project onto them the feeling of anger or hurt, which then elicits a negative response from them. This is turn fuels our belief that they have something against us; and on and on it escalates. We can see this happening on an individual level and community or world level. We aren’t asking the right questions and few, if any, are listening for any answers!

In fact, we rarely actually listen to ourselves let alone others. I personally believe this is the reason for all the conflict in the world. We’re rarely in silence. Wisdom always speaks in whispers. We can’t hear ourselves think. We’re acting on automatic pilot at warp speed. It becomes easy to make snap judgments about others and ourselves. We don’t stop to feel the effects of these judgments. Too time consuming, we think. So we stuff them into our backs or necks or digestive tracks.

Wouldn’t it be easier and healthier to catch the toxic process at the beginning when something happens that we don’t like or that makes us unhappy? Couldn’t we stop and ask, “Is it true?” Then wait long enough to hear the answer. If it isn’t true, keep questioning it until a satisfying more truthful answer surfaces. The answer is waiting within each of us. Ask and it will answer, but we must be still to hear it’s whisper. The truth will set us free, but we must have the courage to ask for it and the time to receive it.