"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." Buddha
The daily newspapers, magazines, internet and TV flood our minds with tremendous amount of information everyday. The information we receive daily is a bundle of opinions and those opinions influence us subtly that we hardly think about its programming power.
For instance, when we read in the newspaper or watch the news on TV about the recession, we automatically begin to believe the news and accept what the media says. We never think or question its validity and truthfulness. We conform to the world, the opinions of others. We listen to their opinions and assume them to be true and in turn we get programmed. We look for events to support other people's opinions and when we look for such circumstances we do find that something bad has happened. But what would happen if we did not know there was a recession? Nothing would have mattered to us. We would have remained normal doing our jobs as usual not bothering about recession at all.
People believe what the media presents them as if things are real. But we don't have to live our life by following other people's opinions. We must have our own independent opinion or ideas and live our life according to our reasoning and common sense. We must stop conforming to the masses because it is dangerous to accept other people's opinions blindly.
Majority of people today are falsely programmed and influenced by opinions of others that they don't know anything about the reality. We must think for ourselves and examine the ideas, thoughts, insights, philosophies and values of others. We should not swallow what other people say. We have a wonderful mind and we must make use of it to live a nice life.
There are people who say, something is not good, but they generalize and say that certain thing is not good for all. They mean to say, certain things are not good for them, but instead of telling or reminding them, they advice other people not to do certain things. We may believe their well meaning intention, but that may not make any sense because we are not conscious about its negative effects.
Believe not what others comment, or express their opinions; just take them as mere opinions and don't conform to their thinking because without proper examination or evaluation through meditation you can never be certain whether their ideas or opinions carry any meaning or value to you or not.
Stop conforming to others' standard and opinions. Think for yourself, examine the said statement to verify its usefulness. If it is likely to influence your mind, stop and walk away from there. Protect your mind today by being alert to others' opinions. You will know when opinions are true and meaningful for you. Listen to the admonition of Buddha and prove this argument and set yourself free.
Alwed Ekka
Guide Coach Mentor
