I’ve come across a number of ideologies in my life that I’ve really gotten into, and at the time I wasn’t really aware of this whole concept and how ideologies are an inherently limiting view of the world. I was just excited and pulled by the nuggets of truth I would hear that resonated with me. And once I got a taste for that higher truth, I was on-board with the entire paradigm. On-going skepticism and questioning would no longer be necessary because I had already subscribed to the program.
But I failed to see all the ways that this common trap makes you believe this is the ultimate truth.. there is nothing higher. And because you believe there is nothing higher, you will defend and proliferate this truth aggressively, which only isolates you from other people and ideas. It’s like you “red pilled” and finally see through all the lies/bullshit of the old ways, only to put on a new pair of lenses from which you again filter your experience of reality.
Example: Conspiracy theorists
One such example from my past was my belief in the world of conspiracy theories. At the time, I believed I had belonged and subscribed to the highest truth that existed. My mind was “free” for the first time. Although I wouldn’t admit this at the time, I adopted an attitude against everyone else who did not believe what I believed. To me these people were merely asleep, and nothing was more important than to “wake them up” to my view of the world.
In some regards this was true. Most people do sleep walk through life and are completely ignorant to higher truths, which include those that deal with conspiracies. But there exists even higher truths than conspiracies that almost make caring so strongly about them obsolete. And those higher truths are themselves not the even the ultimate. I now know that nothing is 100% truth. There is no existing ideology that speaks nothing but pure Truth with a capital “T”. Of all the books that I’ve read and the teachers I follow, there is not one that I would agree with 100%. And that’s okay. That’s how it should be.
When you read a book or listen to a speaker, you don’t wait to hear the thing you disagree with so that you can forever cast them into the category of b.s. (the baby, bathwater thing).. nor do you wait to hear something that confirms all your existing beliefs so you can now become a mouthpiece for that other person’s ideologies. This is a common trap people fall into that prevents them from acquiring new knowledge by locking them into a limited view of the world that is defined by the ideology they’ve now subscribed to.
Radical open-mindedness
The goal in learning and acquiring new knowledge should be a form of radical open-mindedness. It’s rooted in the foundational notion that we actually know nothing for certain. We’re all just trying our best to construct a blueprint for how we think reality actually is, but cannot know for certain. And so when you hear something for the first time, you take what resonates with you and leave the rest. This is a deep skill that can only be acquired over time through practice, awareness and a constant dissolving of your existing patterns of thought (your ego).
New ideas are not meant to be agreed with or disagreed with. There is no argument to be won or lost. It’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong. This is all in your head. Everything is just information/data. You take in as much as you can from as many different perspectives as you can, and then you formulate your own truth over time. It’s never complete, it’s always evolving.. and that’s perfectly okay. We don’t need to walk around pretending like we know everything, because we don’t. Nobody does.
So I encourage you to practice radical open-mindedness in your everyday life. Stop wasting so much energy living from ego and holding onto your existing belief systems so tightly. I can guarantee this is holding you back from become much more than you already are. When you embody this level of wisdom, new ideas and possibilities open up in your world that your previous self would’ve never allowed.. and that’s when you break through the self-imposed glass ceiling that’s been holding you back all along.