Understanding ourselves In order to be happy and do well in life we need to get on with others and understand them. The best way of doing that is to understand ourselves deeply because as we have explored before, the human mind functions in the same way in all of us.# self-discovery
Understanding ourselves also leads to a sense of inner peace. So- how do we begin? Just as we see a bird flying across the sky, just watching it without commenting, we could observe our thoughts and feelings as they rise in us.# self-discovery . That’s the first step. The second step is to go deeper and explore where these thoughts and feelings come from and the hidden mechanisms behind them. In that exploration lies a wealth of understanding which brings intelligence, wisdom, and change that can occur without effort. This journey of self-inquiry needs no special expertise, just a keenness to find out and a certain sensitivity. It is important that we are honest with ourselves and accept what we find. It is also important not to judge ourselves as good or bad because that blocks further questioning. Here are 2 examples. Suppose we go and see a movie with some friends. Some think it was wonderful, and others didn’t like it at all. The discussion gets quite heated. ‘Why does everyone have a different opinion of the same movie, and why are we so attached to our particular view? On exploring further it is clear that our perception of a situation and hence our opinion is determined by the content of our memory- which includes all our past experiences and our conditioning. https://blogs.humanwisdom.me/ Because the opinions come from our minds, we get attached to them and want to defend them. We are not aware of this process working in the background. We are sure our opinions are correct and never question them. Others do the same and that can lead to conflict. This applies to all walks of life. Understanding this process may allow us to explore situations from different perspectives, without being attached to a single one, and this would make our interactions with others so much easier. Another example could be noticing in a conversation how poorly we all listen to each other. We are more interested in speaking about ourselves and less interested in others. Most people are not aware of this. If we explored it further, we would realize that speaking about ourselves strengthens the ‘me’ and that brings us pleasure. This understanding may make us better listeners and improve all our relationships. In this way, we can explore the entire spectrum of our thoughts and feelings. The understanding that flows from this will help us get on better with others. It will also make us more comfortable in our own skin and result in a sense of inner peace. To find out more please visit humanwisdom.me. # self-discovery
