Beyond the Self Mind 2

Beyond the Self Mind 2

It’s not hard to discern when other people’s beliefs and assumptions are self-serving or mistaken, but recognizing this dynamic in ourselves is another story. Just as an eye cannot see itself, the awareness from which we perceive the world has no ability to perceive itself. This makes recognizing and questioning our own beliefs a uniquely difficult undertaking. As with an eye, we are constantly aware of the view, while giving little or no thought to what is providing it. We don’t notice the set of assumptions from which we comprehend the world, and yet it determines our reality in every moment.

Our “knowing” is like a closed circuit that limits possibilities in our thinking, our relating, and in our way of being in the world. To step outside of it is very freeing, but it takes effort, and questioning ourselves in this way can be uncomfortably open-ended. We have to be willing to let go of familiar “landmarks” like our self-identity and cherished beliefs. Whether these ideas are based on truth or untruth is insignificant here. To go beyond the 'Self Mind', we need to loosen our grip on what we already hold as the truth.

The alternative is simply to continue operating as we always have: rather blind to the mechanisms that run us, and living at the mercy of our predetermined reactions. People often accept this as inevitable, but it need not be. Making even a small a small shift away from this "programming," we find that our experience of life and self are altered significantly, and a new kind of freedom becomes possible.

The cultural attitudes we share regarding both knowledge and self can sentence us to a lifetime of low-grade desperation and superficiality.


The Book of Not Knowing
Peter Ralston