“It is difficult to get a person to understand their world, when their world depends on their not understanding it.”
This quote above is perhaps the reason that I, after decades of studying, still simply refuse to understand simple concepts. No matter how simple and obvious they may be, the fact that their acceptance collapses our world view is enough to make them suicide to accept. Except, if they are true, it is suicide not to accept them and we willingly acknowledge that we will not escape this world alive. Might there be another way?
Here are few paraphrased quotations below, from ACIM, Krishnamurti, or Eckhardt Tolle. I believe all are essentially saying the same thing in different words. These are spiritual foundations, and without their acceptance we cannot go far.
The world is in our mind.
This sounds like philosophical conjecture, but let’s set that aside and consider that it is a truth so fundamental and obvious that it’s acceptance would truly be a thought reversal. Paraphrased from ACIM chapter 12 section 3, ‘The investment in Reality’:
‘We always perceive this world as outside ourselves, for this is crucial to our adjustment. We do not realize that we make this world, for their is no world outside of ourselves. We have projected outward what is antagonistic to what is inward, and therefore we would have to perceive the world this way. This is why we must realize that our hatred is in our mind, and not outside of it before get can get rid of it, and why we must get rid of it before we can perceive the world as it really is. This world is only in the mind of its maker. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing where it is will we gain control over it. For we do have control over our mind, which is the mechanism of decision.’
The thought reversal inherent in that statement is colossal. It is literally the reversal of millions of years of conditioning. Why is it so desperately important?
‘If you will recognize that all the attack you perceive is in your own mind and nowhere else, you will at last have placed its source, and where it begins it must end.’
Until we see this fundamental truth we continue to try to make positive change where it can never work: outside of ourselves, at the physical level. This encompasses the entire worlds of politics, social justice, philanthropy and all others that work only with effect, and not with cause. They are doomed to fail.
I believe this is what Krishnamurti meant when he said ‘You are the world, and the world is you’ or ‘the observer IS the observed’. Consider that we ARE the world, as the world is the projection of what we do not want within us, and the observer in us is made from the same essence as the world that is being observed. We are caught in this web of projected thought, and unable to see this higher perspective.
At this point both Krishnamurti and Tolle point to our thoughts, and our over-identification with them as who we are, as keeping us mesmerized and bound in this web. Both suggest watching our thoughts and separating our thoughts from our inner being, which can only arise in the absence of thought. But in most of us, thought is so pervasive and addictive that we are submerged in it almost constantly, without knowing that there is a better way.
Is it not true that when we look outward, we see ‘others’ that are wrong and things we don’t like, or even violently object to? Imagine if we were to accept the fact that to look outward is simply to see a reflection of our own minds. If we attack that reflection, we are literally attacking ourselves. To accept this means to change our ideas of what we are, and simply accept all without judging it. This implies forgiveness of all.
And here is the only way out of the tomb we’ve dug (ACIM T-6.III.3): ‘he only safety lies in extending the Holy Spirit, because as you see His gentleness in others your own mind perceives itself as totally harmless. Once it can accept this fully, it sees no need to protect itself. The protection of God then dawns upon it. Safety, is the complete relinquishment of attack. No compromise is possible in this. Teach attack in any form and you have learned it, and it will hurt you. Yet this learning is not immortal, and you can unlearn it by not teaching it.’
‘Salvation is for the mind, and is attained through peace. This is the only thing that can be saved and the only way to save it. Never lose sight of this, and never allow yourself to believe, even for an instant, that there is another answer. For you will surely place yourself among the poor, who do not understand that they dwell in abundance and that salvation has come.’
Now ‘to give is to receive’ makes more sense. No compromise is possible in this.