Beliefs or Chains

I was recently at a seminar and got chatting with another participant. In the course of our conversation, he steered the chat around to the bible and the scriptures. I was a little shocked at first because I didn't see that coming. So anyway, we were discussing various topics and in a very emphatic and forceful manner, he said, "I don't believe that. The scriptures say that is wrong". While I don't want to get in to specifics of the conversation, we were talking about various healing modalities and enlightment concepts.

What struck me as odd though is that this person was here in this seminar to learn, just like I was. Yet, their beliefs were almost holding them back from even listening to what was being taught. Don't get me wrong here because people who have beliefs are valid and their beliefs can be valid. The part that caused me concern though was just how dead set against this person was to anything outside of his realm of learning or experience in life. Maybe he has something figured out that I don't have and maybe neither of us have anything figured out. Who knows? It may take until the end of our lives to know for sure.

So when do beliefs about something becomes chains that tie us down? Maybe one could suggest that they become chains when they allow ourselves to put limits on what we hear, listen, observe or attempt to learn. You just never know when someone is going to share something that may just be a major piece in the puzzle of learning for your life. Of course, if we immediately exclaim with force that we are opposed to anything different than how we view things, the piece of the puzzle may go on by and never come our way again.

One of the things that I found when I was paralyzed and breathing my last few breaths was that so much of what everyone worries about in life, really doesn't matter. Your perspective changes and priorities are different from that point forward. You tend to evaluate everything you were told or taught, trying to find ways to actually prove or disprove it. We are taught so many things in this world and especially in our own cultures. Yet, we often can not see through the fog to see the tree that stands in front of us. We have become so mesmerized by the fog or what we are bombarded with each day that the fog is what we hold on to as if it was our last breath.

Again, I'm not saying that what I have to share with others is the absolute truth. There are many things we do not know. Everyone has their own views and opinions which is often cloaked in the true fact of belief, but none of us truly know if these things are absolutes.

So I challenge each person reading this, to evaluate life from the standpoint of the observer. See all that it has to offer and try not to only see what it is you want to see. Try looking with clear vision into that which you don't want to see because in doing so, you may just discover much more than you already are aware of. Life has so much to offer and let's make the most out of each of our days and our experiences by embracing every tidbit of experience we can. Only then, do we have the hope of becoming all that we can be!