In Taiwan there is a device known as a Taiwanese monkey trap. It is a simple box made of open wooden slats. A banana is placed inside the box, and it is clearly visibly through the open slats. There is a hole in the box just large enough for a monkey’s open hand to reach through. Once the monkey has a grip on the banana, the trap is sprung: the monkey now finds the hole is too small for a closed fist clutching a banana to pass back out again. There is actually nothing holding the monkey in the trap - except for its attachment to the banana. The monkey will stand there, one arm in the box firmly clutching the banana, for hours, even days. The monkey will remain there until the trappers return to bag the poor distressed creature easily, for the monkey will not relinquish its grip on the banana.

Before you laugh too hard at the monkey’s behavior, consider that all human beings have much in common with both the monkey, as well as the trap. How could we, the vastly superior beings, possibly be emulating this ludicrous creature, you ask? Well, once we get our perceptual grip on something, we oftentimes will not let go of it to save our lives. For us ‘more advanced’ monkeys, the wooden, open-slat box corresponds to a life of suffering, and taking things personally is the banana. As long as we have a death grip on taking everything in life personally, we’re caught in a life of suffering and limitation. Basically, we are trapped by our mind - our thought and beliefs. If we would only open up our perception, we could then release what is holding us hostage, to our detriment and discomfort.

According to Vedic psychology, what most of us are experiencing as personal events are not even personal. They are universal, but once again our perception gets in the way. It may not be personal, but we “take it personally,” as my banana. For example, air, fire and water are all universal elements. We all universally experience them. So, when was the last time you saw someone running around, holding their breath in a constant inhale, informing all around them, “This is my air! My air! You just wouldn’t understand it, because it is my air!” Most likely never. We would immediately recognize such behavior as misplaced identification, and move as rapidly as possible away from the deluded offensive party.

So it is with taking life personally; it is misplaced identification. Vedic psychology says you do not have to take their word for it, you can prove it to yourself. Just ask yourself, “like air, fire and water, were emotions around before you showed up on the planet?” Were human experiences happening before your charming butt arrived to grace the third rock from the sun? Did you invent thought, or was that bouncing around long before you were born? If it was on the planet before you showed up, then it is a universal event, and there is nothing personal about it.

The great 18th century Swedish mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg, says the same about the human experience. He says that as a spiritual creature we take a physical form and come to the universal schoolhouse called the planet earth. Swedenborg says we do this because this universal classroom is the fastest, most efficient way for us to educate ourselves about our Divinity. Swedenborg goes on to say that if there were a faster more effect way to realize our mind than the universal earth classroom, then we would be there, experiencing that something else. Therefore the opportunity to free the mind is offered universally, to everyone, at all times throughout the whole of history. And the educational process that this entails is also offered universally, to all peoples, at all times. Whatever this reality is on earth, it is not personal. What it is, is universally lived, shared and Divinely designed as a collective phenomenon.

Page 1 of 3 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 3 | Next