The immortal line Free Your Mind, is no longer an exhortation to trip off into psychedelia and la-la land.
It is recognition of the biggest obstacle that we face in our development as human beings.
If we accept that Life is a learning experience, why do we so often act contrary to our own interests? Is it due to our pre-conceptions, our blind acceptance of what is sometimes known as received wisdom?
Whenever we encounter a testing situation, a difficulty, a challenge or an obstacle, we often find that all we have learned thus far does not help us. Sometimes, what we believe comes into direct conflict with what we are now experiencing. "The world has gone crazy!" we curse. The fact that our current experience doe not accord to our beliefs simply means that our beliefs are out of date. But that is not how we take it.
In the face of new and unfamiliar situations, what do we do?
Unfortunately, more often than not, we fail to adapt, and fail to confront the possibility, the merest hint, that our beliefs are wrong. We refuse to test or adapt those beliefs and principles and instead reject out of hand anything at all that threatens the security of the world which we have constructed around us. The principles and beliefs that once supported our development, at this point, become a prison, for our minds.
The famous astronomer Galileo encountered nothing but resistance from his peers when he declared that the Earth was not the centre of the Universe. You only have to imagine where we would be now if those around him who resisted his new ideas, and clung to their preconceptions like a security blanket, had won the day.
