Most of us, i feel, were educated to accept innumerable fallacies as facts and as ordinary phenomena to be taken for granted. These have been presented to us since birth and, although it wasn’t deliberate indoctrination, the word “indoctrination” is very applicable to what actually has largely taken place. In our youth, we were not encouraged to deeply question society’s values, doctrines, principles, beliefs, and systems (and go beyond them). We were molded to conform, to remain with (and “as”) the status quo, to accept competition… and deviating from that (significantly) was definitely not tolerated. Some people, reading or hearing about this, would say, “Yes, I know,” or “Yes, I realize that.” It is unlikely, however, that many have even the foggiest idea of just how vast the conditioning (and indoctrination) runs into their lives. We were not brought up to be truly open, creative, questioning, deeply insightful human beings; we were, for the most part, programmed to be copiers, replicators, and obedient parts of the machine.
Most of us do not see the world as “one organism”; we perceive the many parts, many species, many others, many sections. We’ve used thought (as we were taught to) for advantageous purposes, yet most all of us greatly overuse it (dwelling, almost exclusively, in that realm). (Some of us who absorbed calculated methods to go beyond thought, by sitting on mats and all such planned nonsense, have substituted mere glorified hypnotic technique to displace thinking, all the while thinking something great has been accomplished.) Very few of us have intelligently seen the limitation of thinking and have truly (intelligently) gone beyond that limitation. Thinking, being the sequential arrangement of symbols (that it is)… is always partial, always very limited. Thinking is a very necessary tool, a necessary instrument that is extremely useful (at times); however, at other times, it is unnecessary to remain in (and “as”) the realm of thinking. Need the mind always merely exist as symbols, as sequential tokens to attain (or “represent”) something? The very supposed core of most people’s selves consists of fragmentary images and symbols (such as “me” and “I”) that they have absorbed from others. So many are existing in a virtual world of man-made images and fabricated constructs that consist primarily of mere representational ideas and habitually learned patterns.
Real perception, real intelligence goes beyond all this — and that is where the real bliss and eternity exists — not by accumulating more methodologies, not by absorbing more systems and patterns, not by blindly adhering to more authority. The truly perceptive mind looks without outward and inward authority. It sees beyond the symbolic, the partial, and the taught. Such a mind is of real bliss and order. It has no teacher, no resting place, no anchor that others have provided in (and “as”) the past. Without looking with (and “as”) the dead past, such a mind may be truly free, pristine, and unspoiled. There is no procedure or “how” regarding getting there. A lot of people prefer to comfortably remain in the leftover debris that was shoveled to them, and they call it “security” and “wellbeing,” yet they remain full of anxiety, uncertainty, and sorrow. Real (fundamental) security and genuine bliss, however, go beyond the residual norms of a fragmented, nocuous society.
Together … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2017
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 