How else could we live alongside others with profoundly different beliefs about so many subjects?
Let’s take one subject: healthy eating. I just read an article by a dietician stating that, for an experiment, she ate a diet of 80% ultra-processed foods for a month. By the end of her research, she said she felt great, slept better, and was happier than before.
This is so interesting because it flies in the face of current research. So why would this be her experience?
One explanation might be found in health traditions like Ayurveda. Eating in a pleasant atmosphere, without rushing, with enjoyable company and tasty food, will enhance any benefits found in the meal. Your body will be primed to maximize the assimilation of nutrients, water, and phytochemicals. Your feelings of satisfaction, happiness, and love for your companions will cause your body to flood with hormones beneficial to your immune system and, frankly, all systems, improving your health.
So, taking this example, we don’t know if this was the case with her; it may just illustrate how we need not be so militant about our eating and not fear when we err from our intentions to eat more healthily.
This can easily be extrapolated to other topics, from cultural beliefs to medical and political ones. The experience of life on this planet is plastic; our attention, interests, and beliefs converge to create our reality. That is the reality we pay attention to.
One person finds research pointing to the dangers of vaccines, whereas another person finds research proving their safety. Researchers also have built-in biases that affect the variables used in conducting the studies and the results.
Our biases will cause one opinion to make us balk and feel unsafe, whereas another causes us to agree comfortably. So certainly, we will move in the direction of those whose opinions we agree with, and our beliefs will be naturally reinforced.
Our beliefs and biases are structures manufactured by our ego. Think of the ego as the software of your mind; we’re born with a blank slate and built upon it throughout our lives. Most of it is completely underneath our awareness. Our likes and dislikes, judgments, and preferences create what we perceive.
As we evolve, we slowly become aware of this. Through our higher self, that which is beyond the temperamental ego, we actually begin to notice there are multiple ways of looking at things. And that there are many valid sides to an issue. We develop the ability to transcend those differing opinions and see their causes. This gives us choice and the ability to create our reality consciously.
It is funny how, in our systems, take health, and politics, for instance, leaders think that one size fits all. If this food, law, or assistance fits one, it will universally be best for all. But that does not work. We are more complex than that. One food may be suitable for one person and not for another. One treatment, drug, or new law may be helpful for one person but not another, and so on.
Essentially, it is more subjective. Where one sees a world falling apart, another sees the light heralding a new emerging age. What is interesting is the behavior that results from these different views. While some gnash their teeth and complain, others may joyfully create new services and enterprises, finding new ways to help, enlighten, and heal people. Who do you think is more fulfilled and happier?
