Many people claim to know why we, as the individual human we see ourselves as, came here to earth and into this life. Some of them say earth is a school for learning karmic lessons. Others think we came here to help humanity evolve to the next conscious level. Then there are those who believe it was just an accident, life is short, we should get as much out of it as we possibly could. And there are those who see human life as a punishment from god for our sins and if we follow the rules and behave properly, we some day go to heaven whereas we otherwise go to hell. And in between we find numerous religious, spiritual, philosophical, and scientific views about life on earth and who and what we as a person are.
But what is the truth here? How do we know what the truth of the matter really is? Are the religions correct? And if so, which one? Are the scientists right? How can we know? All of them tell us a different story. So how do we get to the truth of the matter? Who or what do we believe in and why?
Questions like these bother me not only from time to time. They have become a quite central issue of my life. I ponder and ponder, I read and read, I listen and listen, but the more I ponder, read, and listen, the more the answer seems to escape me. There is so much information out there that I cannot see the forest for the trees anymore. How can I know which information is correct and which one isnt?
Of course, based on my personal experience I normally reject some explanations right away out of hand. But why do I do so? Is not simply because I have been taught otherwise? Is not simply because some infromation or “knowledge” does not make sense to me because it does not fit my personal model of the universe?
When I look at my questions from this perspective I feel that all answers could be true. How can I know that they are not? I mean how can I know deep from the bottom of my heart which information is true and which isnt?
I must admit that I cannot know this. I have been told certain things and believe they are true because some so-called authority has told me so. But all I did was to believe what they have told me. I have no means of proving they were right or wrong. I believe something and if more people tell me that they also believe in it (usually our entire culture believes in the same stuff), the more I tend to believe it also. But is such a blind belief in any way close to the truth? I am not sure about it. How could I? Only because someone, or many, told me so?
If this is the case, if we really only believe what others tell us, then we must admit that we chose what we believe for any number of reasons or for no reason at all. It really does not matter what the reasons were or even if we have any. We believe what we believe anyway.We might as well believe in self-dribbling elves or in supernatural beings as in god or satan, the big bang, christ walking on water, the flyging spaghetti monster or who knows what. But we rarely do because we have our “good reasons” to believe what we believe. But what are those reasons really? Teachings that we believed in when we were younger. And those teaching fromed our view of the world as we presently have it. And we try to find more evidence each day so support our views of what is in order to have a stale foundation of how the world works. A foundation that we can rely on because it is the truth as we know it. Ans all information that challenges this view are dismissed or argued away.
But this view of the world is not truth. It is simply adopted teachings that we accepted more or less unquestioned. And same applies to ourselves. We have adopted a picture of who we are through the eyes of others who tell us how they see us and who we are. And we believe them. But is this really who we are? I dont think so.
Why do I accept the world views of others and even a definition of myself as that what others see in me? Dont I have a mind of my own? Can I not decice by myself, alone, what to believe and who I am or want to be? Must I believe what others tell me about the world and about me? No. I dont have to do this. I have a choice and I can step out of past conditioning and define who I am in this world. It is always my free choice to do this or not.
- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give my power away to others by accepting their defintion of me.
- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to listen to the truth of others and accept it as my own instead of finding or even defining my own truth.
- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see the world and my role in it through the filter and definition of others rather than my own.
- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek knowledge and understanding outside of myself rather than in myself.
- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself for others to rule over me by submitting to their ideas of how the world works and what my role is in it.
- I commit myself to stop accepting other peoples ideas as my own simply because they sound true and advanced, or because they fit my model of the universe.
- I commit myself to define my own role in this world by my own standards and by what I regard as proper behaviour.
- I commit myself to stop seeing myself as an isolated person in this world that fights for its own survival without considering the needs of others.
- I commit myself to behave and act as an integral member of the human race.
- I commit myself to stop all abusive behavior, be it in thought, word, or deed.
- I commit myself to think, speak, and act in ways that are inclusive in regards to other peoples needs.