Chapter 48 - Creating a Worldview

In previous chapters (21 to 24), I noted some of my observations on the subject of "Worldview". I am now sharing further insights on this subject taken from Deepak Chopra's book "Life After Death" (which I have recently read). I have left out a few of Dr. Chopra's illustrations in order to fit this material into this limited space. 

Creating a World View - Deepak Chopra
When two worldviews clash, as Western culture is clashing

with radical Islam, the pressure to cling to one worldview or the other against outside threat is inescapable.  Our very survival is said to depend upon it.  I am reminded of a CNN interview with a right-wing Christian operative from Indiana who said: "As long as liberals and atheists despise us, we will never go away.

Two people with different worldviews can see the same fact and give totally divergent interpretations of it, because no fact or event is perceived by itself.  Walking down the street, I may pass a woman with bright red lipstick, a faint whiff of wine on her breath from lunch, and no hat on her head.  In my worldview, none of these facts triggers any particular emotion or judgement, so this is a neutral encounter that barely registers on me.  Therefore you might assume that nothing happened in my brain.  Yet, a great deal happened tacitly.  The sight of this woman entered my brain as raw data along the optic nerve, but I couldn't actually "see" her until that data passed through my worldview.  Imagine a series of filters marked "memory", "beliefs", "associations", and "judgments".  Each filter alters the raw data in some way, invisibly and instantaneously.

Should a person with a different worldview encounter the same woman, he would "see" her through his filters.  If he happened to be a traditional Muslim or a Victorian or a medieval monk, all the innocuous features that entered my brain -- the lipstick, the smell of alcohol, the absence of a hat --might cause a violent reaction in his brain, and generate considerable stress.

A worldview provides fixed grooves for behavior, which is dangerous, unfortunately, much of the time.  Traits like racism and war-making persist as automatic reflexes. 

Anatomically the human nervous system is divided into two parts: the somatic and autonomic nervous systems.  All

information in the body that you are conscious of comes from the somatic nervous system; all information that you are unconscious of comes from the autonomic nervous system. Memes occupy a fascinating middle ground, a shadowland. When you can't get a catchy song out of your head -- one classic example of meme behavior  -- you are totally conscious of the tune, but unconscious of why you can't get rid of it.  You may be completely aware that you have a certain trait, such as being stingy, irritable, easily flattered, or self-important, but you cannot say why that trait sticks to you, however much you dislike it.

Worldviews are built of symbols that fulfill a need.  By whatever name we give them, memes are the way we give meaning to experience.  They package meaning into the building block of reality.  Insofar as we are creators of reality, we use these symbolic building blocks as our raw material.  

The Vedic rishis had their own model for what happened in the mind field.  "Thought forms" that grip us are samskaras, impressions made on the nervous system by past experiences.  A young child frightened when his mother forgetfully left him in a department store might carry that impression, or samskara, for life.  Such impressions do not have to be negative. A first kiss can, and usually does, form a lasting samskara.  The concept of samskara goes beyond memes because it applies to all mental experiences. Whether they are sensations, desires or ideas, impressions can go as deep into the field as the soul.  They constitute the qualities of the self that give each of us an identity we recognize as me. 

Samskaras can be dismantled or changed only by affecting

the right level of the mind.  A change at the subtlest level is the most powerful.  "The highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgement-Krishnamurti" That is, if you can stand aside from how your beliefs are behaving, how various impulses of desire and repulsion are pulling at you, how the "stored consciousness" of memory makes you see the world, you can witness the field itself. This is true enlightenment.  In many spiritual traditions, the key seems to be stillness, detaching oneself from the internal dialogue whose stream of ideas and impulses comes from the past.  Witnessing allows us to see and understand with an intelligence that is holistic, without a win-or-lose orientation.  This gives us a chance to experience the mine field, or what we popularly call "having an open mind'.

The most profound of contradictions is that to reach enlightenment, which is free from past impressions, you have no choice but to use your brain, and the brain is mired in its habits of filtering, choosing, preferring, rejecting, etc.  "Can a fragmented mind ever experience wholeness"?  The answer is that it cannot, but all any of us are equipped with is a fragmented mind, a mind made up of memes and samskaras.  Asserting that you have an open mind while someone else's mind is closed or claiming that you experience reality instead of illusion, seems like a reasonable statement, but which are the pure Vedanta -- it is impossible to do things like "trying to be more open" or "trying to get more real".  You are simply fighting with your own divided self.

So what is the way out of this paradox?  There is a way to approach the tricky business of opening your mind.

1.  Know that you are going to identify with your worldview at every stage of personal growth.

2.  Accept that these identifications are temporary.  You will never be truly yourself until you reach unity.

3.  Be willing to change your identity every day.  Take a flexible attitude.  Don't defend an "I" that you know is just temporary.

4.  Allow your ability to quietly observe without judgement to replace the ingrained ideas you reach for automatically.

5.  When you have the impulse to struggle, use that as an immediate signal to let go. Open a space for a new answer to unfold on its own.

6.  When you can't let go, forgive yourself and move on.

7.  Use every opportunity to tell yourself that all viewpoints are valid, every experience valuable, every insight a moment of freedom.
From:  Life After Death - Deepak Chopra