ABOUT MINDSETS

Do you get stuck with the same thought? Are you able to change your thinking on issues which you have fixed views on? Can you think differently from your family and friends? Do you introspect on your belief system to see if you are on the right track?

I am sure none of us can underplay the role of conditioning in our lives. It is the most subtle form of creating mindsets. And I say this because there is little awareness of what we build up inside us over a period of time. We believe our parents out of respect and adopt their thinking patterns. Peer pressure can fix our mind like nothing else can! The need to belong is greater than the possible outcome of invoking anger, sanctions and disapproval resulting from being an independent thinker and “daring” to be different.

Mindsets can be little or huge, though, in my book, each of these are to be examined under a microscope before their worth is proven. What is or SHOULD be unacceptable are those which have been ingrained within us from external sources. ..Some may be compatible and others may not be…I will explain.

Every human being is an individual soul, a unique soul, here on its own journey, with its own “karmic” connections and the freedom of choices. We are here for the EXPERIENCE of being human beings and to learn the lessons we came to learn. Along our journey, we are aided by other souls in the form of family, friends and even those we call enemies. By the very fact that we journey alone under varied environments and situations, how can the solutions for one be a solution for all?

But, along the same journey, we do tend to, unwittingly and without realizing, pick up many beliefs of others which may hinder us in accomplishing our soul purpose. The simple argument against doing this is , “I am not anyone else.  So, I will have to live by my choices and not necessarily the ones which are recommended by others.”

So, to  become an accomplished ,  independent thinker, I may have to unlearn some of the learning  from my past young and immature days. I might have to resist the rigidities of others being foisted on me. Of course, I may be frowned upon if I try to deviate from old set patterns established over the years but I have to tolerate this if I want to carry on with my own journey and not get side-tracked into attaching myself onto someone else’s journey.

Why do I say this? Haven’t you seen that with change and evolution, the truth and validity of beliefs and principles also change?  There are glaring examples everywhere. For example, look at the clothes women are wearing with great comfort today; the older generations would have balked at the very thought! In fact, with modernization comes a pattern of thinking and living unknown to man a few years earlier. This is what we call evolution from phase to phase.

What is noteworthy however, and the point I am trying to make is that, we are able to change our outer selves. But the MINDSETS seem to go on forever! We are not interested in coming out of the boxes we have sunk comfortably into. I don’t have a quarrel with mindsets if they become so after they are introspected on and found to be viable and conducive to our growth. Those then become beacons to follow.

My target is only those mindsets which have been adopted without rational thinking and based on what OTHERS think about how you should think and behave. This line of thought generally incorporates many prejudices, biases and such imbalances which warp the psyche. The resulting actions then would obviously be other – oriented, too and maybe, and not necessarily growth – oriented.

Whether it is religion, or family feuds, “family” patterns and mindsets, personal likes and dislikes, or fear of social sanction , wise people recommend a fair assessment and introspection of thoughts before forming opinions which , when confirmed again and again either by ourselves or by others as the gospel truth, tend to become mindsets. And we continue to live by them permanently, and ironically, in a constantly changing world.

We can be like a flowing river which collects pebbles, sand, weeds etc. along the journey, but unwaveringly, makes new pathways to skirt the obstacles which block it, to reach the ocean and merge with it. Mindsets are the blocks and shifting perspectives to accommodate change are new pathways to reach and merge with Divinity.

Why would we settle for anything less?

Surekha Kothari