Liberation from Present

One thing I’ve noticed that people are stuck in present and they start to think it as some kind of the only step towards a certain kind of “truth” and that things are in a certain way because according to them they are destined to be in that particular way.

Let me elaborate:
People often think, especially people who have never learned history or have learned it but from a point of view hinged on a certain ideology or a religion(which are almost similar) that this present is one inevitable part in the grand scheme of things.

What it actually does over time is that it hardwires people’s brains to a certain idea of the world, to a certain picture and its hard for them to see the world from different perspectives. But the problem is that these people have been raised in a certain way and so they consequently perceive ideas in a particular way and are kind of brainwashed by these concepts and they don’t even realise it.

So, how can you find out if you are one of those people who can’t think from different/wider perspectives?

I’m not saying that its the only way, but I’ve thought and read about these things since a long time now and I came up with this thought process which you can use to test yourself. So that you don’t become a pawn to people who understand this and keep the ability to exploit others.

So here it goes(start to ponder on the below given points as you read them):

1. Firstly, think of an ideology or a religion which is close to your heart, it may be any ideology like communism, socialism, fascism, liberalism or it could be any religion like Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism etc…

2. Now, think of a truly opposite idea or a debatable and analytical point thrown at you. Let me help you there. If you’re thinking about religion then think about the people committing blasphemy and think about your religion as a collection of myths rather than eternal truth.

For ideologies, think in this way: the core concepts of your ideologies are just stories(fiction) which may not work; they are just myths in a certain way, not the absolute truth.

Now, how did you feel? If you were offended by the above things to a degree, that it was unpleasant for you to even think about these conflicting perspectives, then you’re already brainwashed by your ideology/religion. If you can’t entertain these thoughts in your brain without accepting them, then there’s something wrong, and you must do something about it if you want yourself to become a sane independent person.

Now, it’s a scale, a spectrum, you can observe how much you’re offended(on a scale of 1–10) with increasing intensity of opposite ideas and disrespectful arguments against your ideology or religion.

Now, what it does to your brain is that you can’t think about the world and its events in any other way: like a fascist will always see his/her Nation as superior and will entertain the thought about all the sufferings that Nation got through like it is some real human being, and think about its eternal glory.
Similarly, a communist will think about the world as if every event is like a “chronological” order towards communist paradise as stated by Karl Marx.
A religious person will think about it as if their religion is the one and only true religion and about virtuous eternal life cycle or about reincarnation or judgement day etc…
A liberal will think as if human liberty, freedom, free market will solve all problems and sufferings.

Now, the problem with the above thought processes is very simple. These are very naive ways of thinking about this complex universe. But we like these thoughts because they are simple and easy to comprehend for our brains.

But they snatch away something from us, something very profound. They bound us in the present as if this present was destined and things can’t be in any other way than the way they are usually perceived as like it’s a step towards the eternal goal of some ideology/religion and this leads us to become slaves of the present and even stop to entertain the thought that if it was not for certain events, your ideology or religion might not even exist. It was just a slight coincidence in many cases like if Roman Empire didn’t accept Christianity as state religion then most probably Christianity would have been just a small religion followed by a small band of people in some corner of the world instead of the biggest religion of the world.

Now, often you just start to find your role to achieve that eternal goal which may not be even there. Now, I’m not asking you to abandon your ideas but to think from various other perspectives.

So, instead of thinking in the naive way you can think about the world as a dance of possibilities, that this is only ‘a present’ not ‘the present’, that your eternal truth is just one possibility out of infinite possibilities.

This will do two things:

1. It’ll make you tolerant towards opposite ideas and you’ll be less vulnerable to the people ready to use you as a pawn and society would be peaceful.

2. It’ll give you a certain satisfaction, a certain feeling about this pointless, beautiful cosmos.

Now, watch this world, not as an actor but as an observer and ask the most important question, which is: What the fuck is going on here?