The choice about being right

Wanting to be right causes a great deal of suffering within and for the world in general.

‘I’m right’, of course, naturally, and so say 8 billion other human souls inside their minds. We can’t all be right all the time, it’s not possible.

What is ‘right’ anyway? A strange concept that our mind clings onto about us holding the truth over others.

The truth is always subjective and right or wrong do not matter, except to the ego and the collective ego. They are all just mythical mental concepts constructed by the ego to enable us to be superior to another.

The ego will protect itself and being right at all costs. Untold cost to itself and others is caused over being right or not. How many human lives have been lost and untold suffering to millions over someone not willing to be wrong.

Fearing of being wrong and the humiliation of it is very powerful and admitting that their view may not be right is too painful for most to contemplate. Better to continue the suffering.

If however, we accept that nothing is in fact right or wrong, it is all subjective, if we accept that our views are just views, a temporary mental construct based on our mind’s filtering of the world, then we can break our egotistical attachment and end the suffering for ourselves and others. It is the negative impact of the resistance, the emotions that occur by reacting to a challenge to our views that bring about the pain for us and others.

The only true thing is this eternal unfolding present moment, now, where our actual real life occurs, here we can accept all, see that there is no view that matters right now and enjoy just being. We can let go of the ego, let go of our views and enjoy peace within.

It’s a choice, there is of course, no right or wrong.

Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf

The human race has entered a stage where no one listens anymore.

We hear but we do not listen. We surround ourselves in a bubble of our own views, an impenetrable echo chamber of hatred and fearmongering against other bubbles. There is no time for listening, instantly dismissing someone before they have even finished their sentence, based on judgements of our mind of what that person represents.

Listening requires pausing from thinking about our own answer, it requires not thinking about how something affects us and it requires not evaluating what the person is saying while they are saying it. It requires empathy, it requires the ability to understand, it requires the ability to actually take in a viewpoint different from our own. It requires a love of all human souls and a realisation that we are all equal no matter what, we are the one-life, the human race.

An indigenous saying from North America sums up listening well – “Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf”.