The Three Decisive Filters

The mystics keep trying to tell us that reality is all right. The upset is in you, not in reality. Reality is not problematic. Problems exist only in the human mind. We might add: in the stupid, programmed conditioned sleeping mind. Reality is not problematic, but most people are not ready to hear that.  What decides what will finally make its way to your conscious mind from all the material that is pouring in from the world?

• First your attachments.
• Second your beliefs.
• And third your fears.

Your attachments: You will inevitably look for what fosters or threatens them and turn a blind eye to the rest. You won’t be interested in the rest any more than the avaricious businessman is interested in anything that does not involve the making of money.

Your beliefs: Just take a look at a fanatic who only notices what confirms his/her belief and blocks out whatever threatens it and you will understand what your beliefs are doing to you.

And then your fears: If you knew you were to be executed in a week’s time it would wonderfully concentrate your mind to the exclusion of everything else. That is what fears do; they irresistibly rivet your attention on to some things to the exclusion of others.

The people who trained us, the people who programmed us, feared that if we didn’t upset ourselves, we wouldn’t do anything. It never occurred to them that when you upset yourself, you have less energy to do something and perception is distorted. You’re not seeing things right anymore. You’re overreacting.

You falsely think that your fears protect you, your beliefs have made you what you are, and your attachments make your life exciting and secure. You fail to see that fear is actually a screen between you and life’s symphony.