This is a serious consideration. I guess we must talk first about what subjective reality is.
When you are sleeping and experiencing a dream, are the other characters real? Are they independent from you? Most would agree that since the dream is a closed loop, all of the other characters are creations of your mind. Why then do they often express their own will, a will that goes against your wishes? Could it be they are simply following a script? You have assigned them certains character traits and attitudes and then they follow these in the dream sequence. Since it is your dream and yours alone, I think this is what happens.
How does this apply to the waking state? Simply put, YOU assign attitudes and basic scripts to others through your judgments. "He's not to be trusted," "She hasn't got a clue," "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," etc., are all examples of how we do this. We decide through judgment what their character is.
I say, "through [our] judgment," but in reality it is our Ego that does the judging. Our Ego needs to be special, needs to be noticed, needs to be important. One of its methods is to put down others in an attempt to appear superior. We get a rush of self-centered specialness when we judge another to be less than ourselves. Sometimes we also judge others to be special, but it is usually when they belong to a group with which we identify, or to which we also belong. Lastly we engage in motivated reasoning, where we sift through any new facts in search of those that agree with what we already believe. We add those to our firmly held beliefs and throw out the rest, usually assassinating the messenger or finding some other convenient method to discredit the facts.
For some reason we don't recognize that this is all in our heads. These judgments are OURS alone. They are part of our subjective reality, a reality which exists only in our minds. Outside of our minds, nothing actually exists except as particles and waves (matter and energy). We have five senses, some would say six, which are sensitive to a range of matter and energy in our environment. Our brains take these signals sent from our senses and try to "make sense" of them. We assign them a value: a color, a temperature, a texture, etc. These values don't exist except in our minds, they are YOUR subjective reality.
When it comes to people, we believe we KNOW how they are. But where did this knowledge come from? Didn't it come through you? Everything you have decided about others, is based on information gathered by your senses and made sense of in your own brain. None of it is true in absolute terms, yet you would throw the baby out with the bathwater before you would alter your opinion! You are so sure of your judgments that when you actually witness an act in direct opposition to your beliefs, you say, "He must have some ulterior motive," or "A leopard can't shed its spots."
I recognize that this trait is present in us as a matter of degree. We see it in others, when we "judge" that they are more judgmental that WE are. We say, "How narrow-minded," or "She's just sheltered," or "Talk about close-minded!"
Take a moment to evaluate how much of your decision making, planning for the future (even your strategy for today's office meeting) and assessing of where you stand, is impacted by the cracked lens of your subjective reality. How much better would your decisions be if you could observe objectively? How much energy are you expending on constantly trying to fit people into a judgment made in the past, that has to be retrofitted in keeping with actions of today?
You've undoubtedly heard terms like "Awareness," "Waking up" and "Enlightened." With regard to this discussion, these people have reached a stage of Consciousness where they observe the world from a place uncluttered with judgment. They simply allow and accept ALL to be normal and fine. They don't get upset when people and events don't proceed according to their personal judgments. When one reaches this level, nothing that happens is seen as an obstacle. Just as when a boulder falls into the stream, the stream simply goes around it, these people simply go around whatever happens without a second thought.
Today, notice how often you have thoughts of others that label them, judge them, put them in a box. Realize that all of this labeling is attached to your feelings, which arrive through your Ego. Take a fresh look at everyone and everything. You are FREE to go through life with no expectations. The only one enslaving you to your judgments is you...
Duffy
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