Who you think you are, and the illusion of being your own person

[wind3d]

Okay, so you're probably wondering what on earth I'm referring to after reading the subject, and I'd be honored to fill you in, just as long as you are willing to have an open mind. I understand different people will have different opinions, but don't forget about the importance of exploring new ideas, either. If you don't agree with my views, I hope that you are in the very least able to gain some sort of insight from them. After all, everything we know has been taught to us by people before us - what makes us different, though, is how we choose to use that knowledge.

With that said, what I am writing about, is how most of us are oblivious to the fact that a lot of the decisions we make, and where we are in life, are the result of principles we learned in our younger years. It seems like we are making our own decisions a lot of the times, but in reality, we are just going with the flow of what feels 'right' to us, and it feels right to us because as we grow, we mimick the people around us.

As you come into adult hood, after puberty, the hormones, etc, it's easy to think that you are your own person. A classic example, is that of religion. During adult hood most people form their own beliefs on religion, despite for instance being sent to a catholic school in the footsteps of their mother. It gives us the illusion that we decide for ourselves, however - what we don't see, is that other topics, and beliefs we have, that we learned over the course of many years, aren't as obvious as religion. Going into adult hood, we tend to take the most obvious issues, and form our own ideas of it, and it's at this time where parents experience their child going goth, etc. However, there are thousands of other beliefs you might have that are almost invisible. You don't know why you do this, do that, or think this, think that, you just do. You learn at a young age, and from then on, that's just how it is. I promise I'll make more sense soon.

Sadly, where most of this pre-programming occurs, is during grade school. As children, most of our lives lay in the hands of our teachers. In Music class, we are taught of how amazing Mozart is - to our young minds, Mozart is as good as it gets. We are never told that we too, can be as good as Mozart, instead, we are taught in a manner that does not get our expectations up, the logic being that we won't be disappointed if we don't have the talent. Why is it like this? Why are we guided to grasp the negative side, as opposed to the positive? Wouldn't you have been better off at 12 years old believing you could be Mozart, as opposed to measuring everything you do against him?

Why do we teach based on past accomplishments of others instead of future possibilities for ourselves?

Can anyone tell me why they believe college was their best path to be successful? Can anyone tell me why they automatically accept the fact that they'll never go down in history? Can anyone honestly say that their upbringing and education had nothing to do with the decisions they make now? What would you say if I told you that you were going to change the world one day? You wouldn't believe it. Now ask yourself why you are so sure of that? Isn't it interesting that you almost feel cocky thinking even for a second you could go down in history? On a more realistic note, this also applies to starting a business, asking for a date, and many other areas in life. We are taught to doubt ourselves. We always seem to find an excuse.

It is no wonder that life tends to get more and more difficult with time. We pass our problems off and give it an excuse, but we hardly ever realize that a lot of the challenges we face are from seeds that were planted a long time ago, or were planted for us. These are important issues that we all need to think about, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of ourselves. If we can astral project, why also shouldn't we be able to observe the faults of our society and work to make it better?

Just some food for thought, I welcome all thoughts.

[Lighthouse]

why also shouldn't we be able to observe the faults of our society and work to make it better?

Because you are not an individual as your subject states.  You have no independent free will.  You are the totality of all the thoughts, experiences and influences in your life in the present moment of NOW.  In essence, You Are Now.  You can not choose what you will think or feel in each and every moment, it just is.  What you can do is observe what you have done in the moment and make a different choice in any future moment of Now but in each and every moment, you will choose based on all the examples you noted in your first post.  There is only One being here, living out its existence from different perceived individual perspectives.  These individual perspectives are only an illusion of separate individuals.  You are not your perspective, you are Now... the totality of everything.  You expereince the Self from your point of view (perspective) and the best way to "observe the faults of society and make it better" is to observe the faults in your own thinking and release the need to control anything... because like you say, you are not an individual.  When you can let go of resistance to how Anything shows up, you then come to know yourself as Life itself and you realize you Are the flow.