Don't Seek the Truth

Scotoma means, the mind sees what it wants to see.

We see what we have a mind to see. --Robert S Hartman

More then that, we see what makes us comfortable:

But once a negative bias begins, out lenses become clouded. We tend to seize on whatever seems to confirm the bias and ignore what does not. Prejudice, in this sense, is a hypothesis desperately trying to prove itself to us. And so when we encounter someone to whom the prejudice might apply, the bias skews our perception, making it impossible to test whether the stereotype actually fits. Openly hostile stereotypes about a group - to the extent they rest on untested assumptions - are mental categories gone awry. --Daniel Goleman

Because what you judge you cannot understand. --Anthony De Mello

We see what we want to see:

Some students begin by forming an opinion ... and it is not till afterward that they begin to read the texts. They run a great risk of not understanding them at all, or of understanding them wrongly. What happens is that a kind of tacit contest goes on between the text and the preconceived opinions of the reader; the mind refuses to grasp what is contrary to its idea, and the issue of the evidence of the text but that the text yields, bends, and accommodates itself to the preconceived opinion. --Fustel de Coulanges 

Are you listening, as most people do, in order to confirm what you already think? --Anthony De Mello

What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact. --Warren Buffett




And the truth? Were is it? What is it?

Don't seek the truth; just drop your opinions. --Anthony De Mello

I've read book by Anthony "Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality" couple of times, found it amazing but stayed puzzled. HVP test showed me a new direction of thinking towards values and valuation and finally, when I've realized that valuation is in other words judgment, I thought, is this what Anthony wanted to say?

My aim is to ponder our collective predicament: if we so easily full ourselves into subtle sleep, how can we awaken? The first step in that, it seems to me, is to notice how it is that we are asleep.

Contemporary researchers have adopted a rather radical premise: that much or most consequential activity in the mind goes on outside awareness.
--Daniel Goleman

Valuation or (pre)judgment gives objects, situation and people different values. In extreme case it allows for totally reverted valuation and choices. Painting remains to be a painting no matter if it's by Leonardo da Vinci or my little kid. It's our thinking that gives one or the other much greater value.

What Antony say is that we are programmed to value or judge in a certain way which changes the reality. We are not aware, we don't see things as they are but as we are because we look through our lenses of judgment. And our judgment is a coping strategy that prevent us from the pain of what causes or caused anxiety to us:

The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.

Technically speaking, "coping" is the term for a range of cognitive maneuvers that relieve stress arousal by changing one's own reaction rather than altering the stressful situation itself.

That framework and data show, in modern terms, how the self-system protects us against anxiety by skewing attention.

For many serious sources of stress in life, there's little or nothing that can be done to change things. If so, you're better off if you do nothing except take care of your feelings ... healthy people use palliatives all the time, with no ill effect. Having a drink or taking tranquilizers are palliatives. So is denial, intellectualizing, and avoiding negative thoughts. When they don't prevent adaptive action, they help greatly.
--Daniel Goleman

So how much awareness is possible? There's just too much input information around us. How can we train our unconsciousness to filter "properly"? Isn't that "properly" just another appealing system?

I sometimes failed to persuade the court that I was right, but I never failed to persuade myself! --Roger Fisher

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Don't Seek the Truth
By Jozef Kutej 

http://blog.kutej.net/quote/

Barries and Walls

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”- Rumi


"The walls we build around us to keep out the sadness also keep out the joy." - Jim Rohn

The Way the World Is

When you awaken, when you understand, when you see, the world becomes right. We're always bothered by the problem of evil.

There's a powerful story about a little boy walking along the bank of a river. He sees a crocodile who is trapped in a net.

The crocodile says, "Would you have pity on me and release me? I may look ugly, but it isn't my fault, you know. I was made this way. But whatever my external appearance, I have a mother's heart. I came this morning in search of food for my young ones and got caught in this trap!"

So the boy says, "Ah, if I were to help you out of that trap, you'd grab me and kill me."

The crocodile asks, "Do you think I would do that to my benefactor and liberator?"

So the boy is persuaded to take the net off and the crocodile grabs him.

As he is being forced between the jaws of the crocodile, he says, "So this is what I get for my good actions." And the crocodile says, "Well, don't take it personally, son, this is the way the world is, this is the law of life."

The boy disputes this, so the crocodile says, "Do you want to ask someone if it isn't so?"

The boy sees a bird sitting on a branch and says, "Bird, is what the crocodile says right?" The bird says, "The crocodile is right. Look at me. I was coming home one day with food for my fledglings. Imagine my horror to see a snake crawling up the tree, making straight for my nest. I was totally helpless. It kept devouring my young ones, one after the other. I kept screaming and shouting, but it was useless. The crocodile is right, this is the law of life, this is the way the world is."

"See," says the crocodile. But the boy says, "Let me ask someone else." So the crocodile says, "Well, all right, go ahead."

There was an old donkey passing by on the bank of the river. "Donkey," says the boy, "this is what the crocodile says. Is the crocodile right?"

The donkey says, "The crocodile is quite right. Look at me. I've worked and slaved for my master all my life and he barely gave me enough to eat. Now that I'm old and useless, he has turned me loose, and here I am wandering in the jungle, waiting for some wild beast to pounce on me and put an end to my life. The crocodile is right, this is the law of life, this is the way the world is."

"See," says the crocodile. "Let's go!"

The boy says, "Give me one more chance, one last chance. Let me ask one other being. Remember how good I was to you?" So the crocodile says, "All right, your last chance."

The boy sees a rabbit passing by, and he says, "Rabbit, is the crocodile right?"

The rabbit sits on his haunches and says to the crocodile, "Did you say that to that boy? The crocodile says, "Yes, I did." "Wait a minute," says the rabbit. "We've got to discuss this." "Yes," says the crocodile. But the rabbit says, "How can we discuss it when you've got that boy in your mouth? Release him; he's got to take part in the discussion, too." The crocodile says, "You're a clever one, you are. The moment I release him, he'll run away." The rabbit says, "I thought you had more sense than that. If he attempted to run away, one slash of your tail would kill him."

"Fair enough," says the crocodile, and he released the boy. The moment the boy is released, the rabbit says, "Run!" And the boy runs and escapes. Then the rabbit says to the boy, "Don't you enjoy crocodile flesh? Wouldn't the people in your village like a good meal? You didn't really release that crocodile; most of his body is still caught in that net. Why don't you go to the village and bring everybody and have a banquet."

That's exactly what the boy does. He goes to the village and calls all the men folk. They come with their axes and staves and spears and kill the crocodile. The boy's dog comes, too, and when the dog sees the rabbit, he gives chase, catches hold of the rabbit, and throttles him. The boy comes on the scene too late, and as he watches the rabbit die, he says, "The crocodile was right, this is the way the world is, this is the law of life."

There is no explanation you can give that would explain away all the sufferings and evil and torture and destruction and hunger in the world! You'll never explain it. You can try gamely with your formulas, religious and otherwise, but you'll never explain it. Because life is a mystery, which means your thinking mind cannot make sense out of it. For that you've got to wake up and then you'll suddenly realize that reality is not problematic, you are the problem.

http://www.demellospirituality.com/awareness/27.html