Towards a New Brave World

How to boil a frog

The old fable dictates that If you want to boil a frog you have to do it slowly. Drop it into a pot of boiling water and it will jump straight out again. Instead, you need to drop it into a pot of tepid water and then, very slowly turn up the heat until the water boils. That way, the frog won’t perceive the danger until it’s too late.

I believe humanity finds itself in a slow boil situation, similar to the unsuspecting frog … except now the heat has been turned up so quickly that many of us are beginning to awaken to the fact that something is seriously wrong.

A window of opportunity

While these are certainly difficult times, I believe now is also a wonderful window of opportunity to jump out of the pot while we still can and springboard into a new way of life based on abundance, happiness, and love.

The truth is that we are due for a monumental shift in the way we live and perceive the world.

Jiddu Krishnamurti, the late great Indian philosopher, believed that a radical transformation in society was essential but that this could only happen if there was a radical mutation in the psyche of each individual.

Why the need for transformation?

A mechanical existence

Because life has become mechanical.

You grow up, you go to school, you get a job. If you’re lucky, you save enough for a house and if you’re really lucky, by the time you’re 65 you can finally retire and start ‘living life’ – assuming you’re still alive and healthy!

I don’t know about you, but I see something seriously wrong with that picture.

I once heard a spiritual teacher define ‘spiritual awakening’ as the deep, intuitive knowing that there must be more to life than this. This is why there are so many stories of ordinary people ‘waking up’ and suddenly quitting their jobs or trekking off into the mountains.

A worldview founded on scarcity and fear

It is the unfortunate fact that most of us are too embroiled in the day to day struggle of working and earning money that we cannot perceive the true wonder of life.

This begs the question: Why has life become like this? Or rather: Why have we allowed our lives to become like this?

I believe the answer is that we have been programmed to live like this; programmed to accept a worldview founded on scarcity and fear.

Have you ever thought about why so many people in the world say ‘I don’t believe that’ or ‘I believe this’ while others say ‘I believe that but I don’t believe this’?

Programming

It’s all programming.

From the day we’re born, we receive programming from our parents, our family, our friends. Then we go off to school and receive more programming in the form of ‘education’. Along the way, our creativity is snuffed out as we are taught rote-memorisation and the importance of regurgitating information.

By the time most of us are ready to be independent and enter the ‘real’ world, we have become robot-like in the way think and act.

We look at the world as if we know all there is to know and when someone comes along with an alternate view, we quickly dismiss them as ‘uneducated’ or a nutcase.

Mechanical thought

This mechanical way of life breeds mechanical thought.

Mainstream scientists and doctors have reduced the body to a bland, machine-like lump of matter, prone to making mistakes (which expensive drugs will fix, of course).

Our very planet, which every day tirelessly works to keep us living and breathing, is being ravaged and mistreated. Disrespecting nature by genetically engineering food is the ultimate expression of this egoic, mechanistic way of thinking.

Dr. David Hawkins said that the way to enlightenment begins with radical humility, something which the great majority of our leaders certainly lack. Instead, those at the top seem obsessed with power and control. They worship their own ego as if it were God.

The more you make conclusions about the world and cling to programmed beliefs, the less alive you become. Sadhguru, the Indian mystic says that the minute you make a conclusion about something, you have killed it. Once you embrace not knowing, the opportunity for growth exists, but if you already think you know, how can you evolve?

Many of humanity’s greatest struggles, including the present situation we find ourselves in, are caused by our willingness to blindly acquiesce to ‘authority’ and accept all forms of programming.

We have become second-hand people, unable to think for ourselves and, certainly unable to think critically.

Knowing oneself

In reality, there is no authority, no teacher, no master and no saviour. We, ourselves, must change. In order to change we must know our self and in order to know our true self, we must rid our mind of all programs, all concepts and all beliefs.

This process of renewal, of ‘radical transformation’, begins with observation. Because, in the seeing is the doing. Once you see your own programming and understand how that has created your limitations, you can begin to overcome it.

The absence of fear

Krishnamurti spoke of what he called the ‘religious mind’. The religious mind is not the mind that believes in religion. The religious mind is a state of mind in which there is no belief and therefore no fear. In this state of mind there is nothing except what actually is.

In the absence of fear, the energy of life is allowed to flow unimpeded. It is only in this state that we are truly aware, truly receptive to the gifts of life.

Letting go … and freedom

The mechanical mind views the evolution of consciousness as a process of gain when it is actually a process of letting go. Whether we consciously know it or not, we are all striving for freedom and it is only once we let go of all illusions, all programming, that we are truly free.

Casey Burridge is a 25 year old man who is passionate about helping create a caring, compassionate and prosperous new brave world of which the emerging generation and their kids can be proud. Casey is not afraid to shy away from presenting views that differ from what we may be used to from mainstream media but he does so by citing credible sources and compelling research.