The shredder in our mind
Everyone must have heard of the Stichting Skepsis at some point. This is a group of people who relegate everything that cannot be proven in material terms to the realm of myths. But not only that, because even things that have been proven but do not align with their own perception of how the world ‘really’ works, according to them, are rejected and even ridiculed or tarnished. Out of sheer ignorance, they firmly cling to their mindset about an alleged ‘true’ and provable reality, and they relentlessly shoot down anything that does not align with it.
Skeptics thus have a continuously spinning mental shredder. Everything they dislike gets crushed within it. Anything that cannot be perceived with the five physical senses, anything that cannot be understood with common sense, and anything that cannot be proven materially, goes into this inner shredder.
Furthermore, skeptics readily accept many things and overlook them entirely. For example: how is it that no two people in this world are alike? Even though we all come from sperm and egg cells. The unique individuality in every person, in terms of character and talents, has never been proven to be determined by our DNA. Logically, all people in the world should be more or less the same internally, just like bacteria or ‘lower’ species. But such a phenomenal and unexplainable fact is completely overlooked and taken for granted. For them, suddenly no ‘evidence’ is needed to explain this. The reason is evident: they are not focused on the wonder of the unexplainable, they don’t engage in self-exploration, they are not oriented towards self-knowledge. And whoever claims to know, explain or reject everything, but doesn’t know themselves, misses everything! (freely based on what Jesus once aptly said)
So all of us!
Unfortunately, it turns out that we all have an inner shredder. Unnoticed, we often set many things aside or even resolutely reject things based on a limiting mindset about reality, about “what is”. So, it’s not only the previously mentioned skeptics, who are focused on material reality, who merrily shred away, no, also in the world of intelligentsia and spirituality, many things are rejected or dismissed as nonsense in advance. This happens from a viewpoint that is as resolute and limited in its perception of reality as the one we observe in skeptics. But now the limitation isn’t in material thinking, but in philosophical thinking or in assumed spiritual paradigms or dogmas, which are only known or “grasped”, but have not yet been understood or experienced.
What is the cause of this?
Throughout our lives, we continuously seek security. From this basic need, which is entirely real, we fend off a lot that could cause uncertainty or that might disrupt our inner comfort: the comfort of a firm mindset. Nothing feels as good as “knowing how it is, and being done with it”. A false certainty that seems to provide an illusion of safety.
What we don’t understand, or don’t understand yet, can make us feel insecure if we’re not open to it and can evoke a feeling of insecurity within us, which would vanish if we were open to it. Distancing ourselves (resolutely) from a different perspective or misunderstood knowledge, in any way – with cynicism, sarcasm, or even aggression – is quite obvious because we can quickly do this from a certain inner strength: the power of identification with one’s own viewpoint. With inner strength, we basically drive away the emerging feeling of insecurity or unsafety (which can quickly transform into, for example, anger). Get out! It’s an inner gesture of dismissal, stemming from ego-driven willpower. In this way, the ego (the “I” entities that want to maintain themselves) tries to “protect” itself.
But of course, nothing is truly protected. It’s only shielded. Our highest discerning ability is shielded: Buddhi, our Gateway to Inner Wisdom. In essence, it isn’t genuine inner strength but a powerful mechanism that weakens our being because this dismissive gesture will not expand or strengthen our inner self. It will even weaken us at the energetic level. It will “lower our vibration”, as it’s commonly referred to these days. Only the ego is reinforced by this, and the mindsets persist. Thus, the pitfall remains. Our uneasy feeling will be triggered again and again in similar situations, requiring it to be continually dismissed, making us endlessly shred to maintain our “own truth”.
It’s clear that this mental shredder causes a lot of separation. We don’t like not being heard or understood and even less being rejected for a different insight. Conversely, we find it natural to do the same in response. However, at that moment, an alarm bell should ring inside us with this message: ‘Beware! Quicksand of identification detected! Do not proceed on this path! Immediate inner exploration needed!’ and so forth. Our inner shredder thus doesn’t only crush opinions, but, through resistance, feelings, and opposition, whether earthly or spiritual, it also shatters human connections.
