Challenging our own Worldview

There are a number of people I read or admire for many reasons. I don’t always agree with what they say and that is a good thing. I like to read things to compare different points of view, to try and get a complete picture of things. In the light of a new experience, I may have to change my worldview – that mental platform that forms the scaffolding of my temporal personality. Moreover, not agreeing with someone doesn’t mean they are wrong. I always make up my own mind – there is a difference in believing that 2+2=4 than knowing that 2+2=4 and sometimes (!!) there are things that I just don’t know (actually, there are many things in that category!) but tentatively accept even if they appear to fit into my worldview.

I never hold my worldview that strongly – I am always open to being corrected, to changing what needs to be changed, and thereby grow as an individual, and – importantly – hopefully avoid being chained to something that pertains solely to my temporal nature.

It is also important to understand the purpose of a ‘worldview’, and that is why I referred to it above as “scaffolding of my temporal personality”. It allows us to orient our own-Self in this world. But what may be useful in this world, may be a hindrance in the next. A worldview is something we create throughout our life, it is not something that is part of our true-I nature (our Spiritual core), but it is something necessary for our temporal orientation. The point I want to make here is that often someone, or something, comes along and challenges our worldview in some way, not necessarily in an aggressive way, but in a way that makes us react. This reaction may be defensive (“I know the truth, and you are wrong”) or it may be sympathetic (“perhaps you have a point, and I’ll think about that”). I’ve noticed that most people react defensively to challenges, not really being willing to engage in conversation, and not really being open to what the world may be saying. This is unfortunate, because the Spirit is not limited by parochialism and goes where it wills.

When peoples firmly held worldviews are challenged, they often react in such a way that the message within the challenge (which is not necessarily vocalized) does not reach them. Their antipathy is like a closed door. We all exhibit this type of behavior, for it is a natural part of our temporal condition. The trick is to learn to overcome these (largely unconscious) reactions so that they do not control us, but help us to understand things better, thereby building our own character and perhaps learning a thing or two from the message as well.