The other day I was participating in a discussion on Facebook. The theme of the topic was the supermarkets here in Brno and one person posted a very long tirade about empty shelves. I was amazed. Empty shelves? Where? When? This was such an opposite to my experience with Brno supermarkets that I responded rather too quickly. I said something like – you must live in a parallel universe…..
Of course, he took this as insulting, not knowing me. I think probably anyone would. But I actually meant it. It wasn’t an insult but an observational analysis that, as I grow older I more and more believe may be true. We all live in our own realities and we reflect back what we expect. It’s not quite that simple of course, but in a nutshell he sees the empty shelves of his own making and I see the full shelves of my making. It’s the glass half empty or half full thing isn’t it. Who would have thought I would be the half full person!?
You see people caught up in their self-constrained belief systems torturing themselves and those around them, whereas others live life full of expectation and optimism. You see people willingly being negative and walking around creating the little cloud above them. Of course, the Matrix is full of influencers and motivators that play on, feed, and drive these realities. The world is really more like that Star Trek episode where they land on a planet and are fed back what they expected, than it is like the Matrix.
It might be simple to manage if it were just me or you, but the real fun comes in how we interact and how our little realities impinge upon others. Your problems become mine and so on – if I let them. We create our own realities, but are influenced by the collective drivers (fear, sex, wealth, love, hate etc.) and, at the same time, interact with the realities of those around us. Surround yourself with happy people….. trust me. It’s the way to go.
How we create that reality is as much about our upbringing, cultural origins and so on – the collective we are a part of – as anything else. To see the world differently, we have to escape that collective for another and another and another, until suddenly it becomes clear…. I am having my creativity dictated to me. It is then that we look inwards for the truth. We get glimpses of that truth and what we see is truly shocking. Rather than purposeful, willful beings creating a meaningful reality, we are robots, slaves or sheep (pick your term) working to help others create their reality!
To get to this point, we have to go through some personal pain because we have to reject so many things that we once accepted, nay believed, to be the truth. Stripping away the chains of bondage and layers of control is painful both to us and to those around us; who just don’t get it and who see their comfortable reality threatened by ours. We end up alone, apart and isolated. But then we understand that we have to interact. We have to replace the collective drivers for everyone else as well as ourselves. The only way to do that is to interact, experience life, have compassion, be grateful and step forward in self-mastery. A very difficult if not impossible mandate.
“Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All.”
“If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.”
“Recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you . For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest.”
His disciples questioned him and said to him, “Do you want us to fast? How shall we pray? Shall we give alms? What diet shall we observe?” Jesus said, “Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered.”
Gospel of Thomas source – The Gnostic Society Library