Mental
Paths
“A
single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single
thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical
path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must
think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our
lives.”
Henry
David Thoreau
All great spiritual
teachers come to realize that we are shaped by our thoughts. The mind
is our template, and as we think, so we become. Look at America right
now—our divisions are based on ideology, not reality on the ground.
Nothing has changed here—the land is still the land, the people are
still the people, we are still fifty states blessed with a variety of
skin colors, dialects and ways of life. What has changed is the
polarization around beliefs. When disaster strikes, all the divisions
fall away, and we become neighbors and helpmates once again. It is
our thoughts that divide us, and our thoughts that reunite us.
We have forces among us
always who want to direct our thinking to their own advantage.
Whether we live in America or elsewhere in the world, there are those
who would feed us information, correct or otherwise, in order to sway
us to their way of being in the world—not for our own good, but for
theirs. Industries and power-brokers, religions and cults, vye for
adherents to their cause by espousing their own version of truth.
It's dizzying, and often hard to know which way to turn. All of which
makes it essential for us to take control of our own minds.
One of the best guides
for choosing what to think and what to believe resides within you. It
is your heart. Not so much the organ that keeps your blood flowing,
but the moral compass that resides in the center of your body. When
we make decisions, do we consult this most important part of us? Do
we ask the simple question, "Does this feel right to me." Even if we've taken
a stand on some issue or other, carried our concrete tribal beliefs
into adulthood, we can change our minds. We have erroneously dubbed people who
change their minds “wishy-washy,” or “flip-flopper,” or worse, but the ability to change one's mind and change direction as a
result is a sign of strength. It indicates growth and flexibility,
not weakness. Those who would have us believe that changing our minds
is equivalent to abandoning our ideals are simply wrong.
We are what we think, and
we can change what we think. We can tramp down new thought paths if
we choose. In the words of William E. Lewis, Jr., “It's
perfectly okay to make a decision, and then change your mind. Being
able to change your mind is the best way to find out you still have
one.”
In the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment