Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Book 1 (My Opinion, Your Choice) - Chapter 1, Part 3


Continued...

At its most basic, there is only the now. To create this now, the mind creates the physical world around us, and backfills the past in a way that meshes with all of our ideas, beliefs, thoughts, desires, and whatever else there is our current “I” consists of. In other words it fills the world according to our opinions, including the opinion of the previous moment. As we pay attention, according to our opinions, to the various stimuli we create in our everyday experience this adjusts for the conscious and subconscious minds what we are drawn to (even if this is something we do not like) and they manifest more of it. As we become aware of new possibilities this expands our potentials to modify our opinions, especially if these are ideas we don’t have strong feelings and opinions about. As our mind expands to accept new possibilities and new potentials, our beliefs and opinions adjust and we gain new understanding and abilities to change our reality. This leads to a further expansion, the beliefs adjust again, and the cycle continues. What about old age and death you may ask. What about them? What do you think, rather what is your opinion, death is? What opinions make you think being mortal is better than being immortal? What opinion makes you think you can't be immortal? How would you disprove your immortality so long as you’re alive?

As your opinions form your reality, you may notice the patterns of you opinions being represented. Society is a representation of you as an individual. The government is your mind, a collection of laws/opinions as free or as stifling as you allow yourself to be. It continuously creates and adjusts laws/opinions, ranging in severity from felonies to misdemeanors. Some of these laws you ignore with impunity, while others carry stiff penalties and punishment. When you do something shameful which is your breaking your own laws, the punishment is your own guilt, and you continue feeling it until you decide that you’ve had enough. This may be a mere pang of guilt you may not even notice, or it may be years of self-castigation. As you adjust your opinions and beliefs, laws adjust to match your preference for the state of the collective, be it society or your persona.

The governmental structure is the relationship you have with your higher mind and the ego. Is the ruler a democratically elected president, or a dictator? Do you trust the collective guidance of your opinions and that they have your best interests at heart represented as a senate or parliament with a president. Or does your ego act as a dictator and decide what you want when you want it while ignoring all objections by the opinions? Your opinions will determine what choices you believe the ruler is making, do you trust them wholeheartedly or do you second-guess and mistrust them while doing whatever you want. Maybe the ruler is a fool but at least an elected fool, he could be a horrible tyrant, then again he could be the best leader history has ever seen.
  
The country you live in represents the balanced system of beliefs you have established for yourself. It is the collection of laws which you have determined work for you, some good some bad but it’s home. The other countries are representations of what is possible according to your mind. Some are chaos and lawless disorder, and every moment of every day you are thankful for not living in that hell and see the contrast of why your country is so much better. Other countries you see as paradise calling to you while showing you everything that is wrong and miserable with where you live. Your fear of the unknown keeps you from moving to the paradise, at the same time showing you hell and saying “at least it’s not as bad as this.”

Your job represents what you believe you need to do to survive. The more you believe that your hobby or pleasure can provide for your survival, the more aligned and fun your job will be. The more of a disconnect is present between the fun pleasure and the job, the more displeasure the job will bring. The idea “work is fun and I can’t wait to go so that I can start having fun”, is a stark contrast to “I have to go to work and I can’t wait for it to be over”. Careers are our choices or in other words opinions of what we would like to do or feel that we had to do, but we are not locked into them. It is always possible to switch careers and do something that we believe would be more fun. Just like with countries, there’s the job you do, the horrible job you could have been doing, and the job you wish you could have been doing but fear of the unknown keeps you from trying to get it.

Consider the possibility that your manager at work is a representation of the higher self, similar to the idea of the ruler of a country. Do you trust your manager to make good decisions from their vantage point, or do you second-guess them? Are you friends with your manager, or do you dislike them? Do you work together to grow and advance, or is the relationship more one-sided? The job is great, but if only you could get rid of the manager. Perhaps it is the other way around, the job is atrocious but the manager makes it all worthwhile. The boss is the boss, they could reward more for the work being done, or they could nitpick at every mistake. Maybe they’re not so bad, it could be better, but it could be worse.

The pattern of the reality surrounding us begins to emerge. Our opinions have resulted in what we individually experience. A guide is there trying to show us the path to better, while we listen to or ignore them. Whatever the experience is, it can always be worse and it can always be better. Fear keeps us from trying to get to the better while we take comfort in knowing that there is a possible worse.

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