OPEN MINDED-NESS

The doorway to a peaceful world

Society is clearly walking in a direction of destruction, a direction lead by closed-off minds.

For society to change its course towards a world free of destruction, a world of love, compassion, and peace, society must turn to the surrendered and opened minds and let them lead the way going forward.

When one becomes truly open-minded, one begins to see the world through “glasses” of peace – glasses you too can acquire.

Before I move on with this essay, I would like to stop for a moment and make it very clear that I am not here to try to ‘add’ anything to you or to ‘sell’ you something. If anything, I wish for you to do the exact opposite. I wish for you to think less, to let go of the ‘stuff’ you already carry – internally as well as externally. I am not trying to convince you of some belief-system, and I am not trying to make you attach yourself to some concept. I am here to express a different point of view, my point of view – as Alan Watts once said: “I am not a guru; I am simply someone who enjoys talking about what I think… I just want you to enjoy a point of view that I enjoy.”

Read on...

This essay is about open-mindedness; an ability that already inhabits every single human being deep within, but, just as the clouds on a stormy day obscures the sun, so is this ability obscured for almost everyone.

To know what open-mindedness is, one must know what it is not, that is to say, what closed-mindedness is. A way to describe closed-mindedness would be the following description: “people's inability to accommodate and consider a competing narrative.”

The majority of people at present live with closed minds. To me, it seems that most people are well aware of what closed-mindedness is, but when it comes to its polarity, open-mindedness, they fumble in the dark.

The larger part of society has completely misunderstood the real meaning of open-mindedness – this part of society doesn’t grasp the depth of what true and genuine open-mindedness is all about. People often use the phrase, “you have to be more open-minded” only when an argument is not going in one’s favor. Most people believe that open-mindedness is the action itself of accepting new ideas or suggestions. In other words, just to try something new for the sake of trying its newness or taking on a new idea just because it is new. This is not at all true when it comes to open-mindedness.

Open-mindedness is about the willingness to consider the newness.

When it comes to the aspect of trying new things, many people, who do not know the true meaning of open-mindedness, will say about people who don’t try out something new, that they are picky, fussy or just plain antisocial, regardless of the ‘antisocial’ person’s inner state. A new something could be a drug, hurting someone else, even the act itself of listening at a particular moment in time, etc. Here it is crucial to be very careful and to keep the balance on the edge of the razor blade, in other words, to be very sharp and precise. In such situations, to know if one is being open-minded or not, one must look within. Is there calmness about the potentiality one is being faced with? Or are there desperation and anxiety around it? No one says that one has to do or try something just because it is new. If one doesn’t feel like doing or trying something, one doesn’t have to do it. But when it specifically comes to open-mindedness, one, in order to make an open-minded decision, must know what’s left and what’s right. If one is in desperation and feels anxious, one is not staying open-minded. Because, remember, open-mindedness is about the willingness to consider the newness. Thusly, take any of the above-mentioned examples, if one is asked to do something, and one is able to calmly, with a sense of peacefulness in one’s heart and stomach, and non-defensively say “I don’t feel like it, I might change my mind in the future, because no one knows the future for sure, I just know that at this moment I do not feel like it, so, no thank you”, then one is staying very open-minded. If this is not the case, one has closed off the mind, so to speak. This even applies to the act of listening. Just because one doesn’t feel like listening at this moment, doesn’t mean that one never wants to listen again and therefore doesn’t equate to closed-mindedness – it all comes down to one’s inner state.

“A characteristic of open-mindedness is that you never settle for a certain or specific set of beliefs or ideas.”

Many people also think that open-mindedness is the act itself of changing one’s opinion. In the end, it may lead to an opinion-shift, but does not necessarily mean to change one’s opinion, just because the given new idea is different from or directly opposes one’s current ideas. To be open-minded means that you are able to put your ego fully aside, be completely neutral and impartial with new, as well as old, information and knowledge.

To be open-minded, one must also learn to listen genuinely, with an unconditional desire of interest in the other person.

The state one enters when one truly listens is a state without thoughts, inner dialogue or judgments, of non-reaction, which is absolute observation.

This state is sometimes described as silence, stillness or our natural state of [human] being. It is about being able to listen to every topic with the same intensity and passion, that perpetuates your life and which you find yourself burning with a desire to share. To listen to these ideas and process them without labeling or condemning, and then making the decision about what to do with that which one just listened to, honestly and objectively.

True listening is a result of having fully surrendered to the Now, exactly as it is. From this state of utter listening, from absolute awareness, from true open-mindedness, one will automatically and without effort take ‘right action’.

The only way ‘right action’ can occur, is to put the ego fully aside and then go into one’s heart for answers. It is from the Heart that true knowing comes, and in which true intelligence dwells. This is where intuition becomes apparent as a major part of open-mindedness. How does one know if one has gone to one’s Heart and found ‘right answers’? It is when one listens to one’s intuition – the feeling of knowing without knowing how one knows.

Now you may be asking, “how do I know if I have taken this ‘right action’ you mention?”

It is when one does not have an inner need to defend one’s position when one can be comfortable with being in the silence that comes out of the satisfactoriness of knowing one’s position – and that that it is enough. It is when there is a sense of inner peace and serenity, no matter what happens or is said on the outside.

As mentioned before, open-mindedness is about willingness, and that’s the keyword here; willingness. As long as that is absent in a given person, one may try to force him or her from now and till the end of time, while only experiencing the construction of a bigger and bigger wall of continuous accumulation of resistance and tightness inside him or her – as Carl Jung said: “What you resist, persists.”

Inside the given person there must be a willingness for transformation, and thus in the end, and as the only way, they may change themselves. It is absolutely and completely impossible to change others.

Forgiveness or surrender is different names for the same and only thing one can do until willingness is created in the individual, after which one may inform, not preach, inform.

Open-mindedness also has to do with being non-judgmental of people being closed-minded, and not to try to change them. Because if one is not able to be open towards closed-minded people, to give them space in which they can be who they are, and to accept them exactly as they are, one is, per definition, being closed-minded towards these people. Therefore, having contempt towards certain people, in this case, ‘closed-minded people’, is not ‘right action’, is not being open-minded.

Hence, there is only one thing to do, when being confronted with a closed-minded person, a very simple one in fact, and that is to forgive. This is why Jesus said: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Forgive and become comfortable with not knowing and thereby, with not thinking. In this state, if confronted with a closed-minded person, one becomes content with not knowing what to do or what to say to this person, and thus only silence remains – silence, which is space, which is stillness. Stay in that stillness, be the space which allows the other person to be – then forgiveness will come naturally and effortlessly. Another way to put it is to say that one trusts life, one trusts this moment even though the uncertainty of it remains. Paradoxically, one could say that one comes to know the not-knowingness of this moment – this is also called non-conceptualized knowing, which is felt in the Heart. Through the stillness that comes from being comfortable with not knowing, with not thinking, one, paradoxically, accesses the source of all knowledge.

“With open-mindedness comes the belief that the seemingly impossible is possible.”

Eckhart Tolle profoundly and beautifully sums up the concept of forgiveness in his book ‘A New Earth’: “Another word for nonreaction is forgiveness. To forgive is to overlook, or rather to look through. You look through the ego to the sanity that is in every human being as his or her essence”

When knowing how to deal with a closed-minded person, let us now dive deeper into the how and the why to step into open-mindedness.

An online definition of open-mindedness says the following: “Open-mindedness is the willingness to search actively for evidence against one’s favored beliefs, plans, or goals, and to weigh such evidence fairly when it is available.”

In this definition words like ‘search actively’ and ‘weigh fairly’ stand out.

With such words, new questions arise. Questions like, how and when does one know if one has been ‘searching actively’ enough? If one has taken in the new information or idea and processed (to use the terminology of the definition above, weighed) it ‘fairly’? And, how does one know that the ego in disguise hasn’t crept in and taken a biased approach?

To answer those questions, one must look at three words or concepts that essentially describe the same thing – these are ego, control, and resistance. Even though these three concepts are more or less synonymous they still have subtle nuances that give them a sense of individuality – nuances that we now will take a closer look at.

By letting go of control, one becomes vulnerable. Contrary to popular belief, resistance is not the biggest strength in life – as the quote above said, what one resists, persists. The biggest strength in life comes from letting go, from surrendering – with this action one becomes truly vulnerable.

When one lets go and surrenders to the present moment, one also lets go of the resistance towards the risk that is embedded in every single relation one may have, in every single moment. Hence, it is only when one voluntarily goes into a state of vulnerability, when one wholly accepts the infinitude of risks of every moment that open-mindedness becomes a possibility.

With regards to the ego, to be fully open-minded one must be willing and able to ‘die before one dies’. This means the death of the ego – one must able to let go of one’s pride and resistance to discover the ability of open-mindedness.

Have you ever felt that familiar pain in your stomach, the one you feel when you know you have treated another person very disrespectfully and hurt him or her? – And in doing so embarrassed yourself? You intuitively know that you are stepping away from ‘right action’, that you should apologize, but cannot get yourself to do it?

In such a situation one has two options.

The first option is to not apologize at all or to do so in an insincere way, which basically is the same as not apologizing.

The second option is to apologize, and doing so in a sincere way, which is ego-less action.

The pain one feels in the stomach when something goes against one’s intuition is a very good indicator of how to know if one is in a state of true open-mindedness or not.

If one chooses to take the easy way out and follow the desires of the ego, it very strongly indicates that one has stepped into the closed-minded category. On the other hand, if one chooses to feel the pain, to stare the fear directly in the eyes and still takes ‘right action’, it would indicate that one has stepped into the realm of true open-mindedness.

An example of this is two friends having a dialogue about a specific topic. It goes as follows...

Let’s say that person A is you, and person B, one of your friends.

Now, person A and person B are talking as they usually do when they hang out together. Suddenly person B makes the subject take a radical turn. A turn onto a subject which person A always has had a very hard time listening to, not to mention, talk about.

The truth of the matter is that person B knows nothing of these emotions of person A’s.

Immediately, person A feels the pain in the stomach described above, getting very strong because he/she is subconsciously about to suppress his/her feelings and to take the easy way out – an act that would if done, go against one’s intuition. Now person A has two options, and he/she must choose one of them.

Person A can choose to immediately take the easy way out and change the subject or telling person B that he/she definitely does not want to talk about the given subject – in other words, ‘to run away’.

Person A could also choose to recognize and acknowledge the pain and the fear that has arisen inside, letting go of the desire to control the situation, and just letting the feelings be there without reacting to them – to let it ‘loose’ inside of him/herself. Person A is now aware of the space inside him/herself, aware that this space is more than enough to house both him/herself and the feeling of discomfort. In doing so, person A will be able to sit with genuine interest and listen to what person B enthusiastically is sharing and expressing. With this choice, person A knows very well that no change in opinion has or must take place, but instead, that it now can take place if he/she chooses so after having listened. [End of example]

A good way to become more open-minded is to inhabit the discipline of practicing the second option from the example described above, during your future conversations and interactions. In the beginning, when a situation presents itself, take some deep conscious breaths, to keep relaxed. Use your breath for as long as you feel the need until it simply becomes second nature to be fully open-minded.

Talking of conscious breaths, another recommendation of mine is, as often as you remember to be aware of your breath – to breathe consciously. This will not only help you in situations like the one described above but in all areas of life!

I have had many encounters with people to whom I, in the very first moment of interacting with them or even just seeing them, have taken inner distance from and judged, either because of their opinions, ideas or appearances. However, every single time I have let go of my prejudices and given them the benefit of the doubt, become neutral in a sense, it has always turned out to be people I have had great experiences with!

When I open my mind, when I give people space, space to be, they suddenly appear as wonderful persons. Whereas when I have the prefixed belief that they cannot possibly be likable persons, then that is what appears to me, then that is what gets reflected onto me through the mirror of the external world.

To answer the question about how one will know if the ego in disguise hasn’t crept back in, I can only give a vague answer, because it is something that one must feel deep within oneself.

My answer is that one will intuitively know when one truly has opened one’s mind. If one has the slightest doubt, it’s not it. Here one must be very sharp and honest, and be very observant and alert to make sure that not even a sliver of doubt is hiding in a corner of the mind.

“When you no longer need to ask the question, ‘how do I know if I have opened my mind?’, you will know that you have.”

To summarize open-mindedness in one short sentence, I will turn to Don Miguel Ruiz. His fifth agreement is spot on: “be skeptical, but learn to listen.”

Open-mindedness is about being skeptical but still sincerely listening. Meaning that the open-minded individual will openly receive what is given, a potentiality, then skeptically but sincerely and objectively process it.

When trying to express and explain truths through language, wherein a subject and an object are embedded, it will often sound paradoxical, something that cannot be avoided. Because of this, it is important to not substitute the words, concepts or ideas for the truth. The words are only signposts, pointing to the truth.

In India, they have a saying: “I am a finger pointing to the moon, don’t look at me; look at the moon. ” The finger can never become the moon; it can and will always only be able to point to the moon. In exactly the same way, the words can never become the truth; they can only point to it. Therefore, one must look beyond the words, beyond the signposts in order to realize the truth to which they point.

When one has become entirely open-minded, through consistent practice (something most people will need initially), one will begin to notice of a whole new state of consciousness, of being. One will get a sense of stillness from which peace and contentment emanate and arises as a feeling that transcends duality – this feeling is often called the feeling of oneness, of love, joy or compassion.

In life, there is only one constant. Can you guess what it is? It is change; it is movement. Every manifestation in life is impermanent, is evanescent. Either they are fleeting and ephemeral or lengthy and enduring, but what goes again for all of them, with no exceptions, is the temporariness – eventually, all manifestations will dissolve, no matter how long of a lifespan the given manifestation may have.

With this in mind, and the discovered ability of open-mindedness, one will be able to tackle life much more effectively and much easier; in other words, one will have the willingness to align with Life, with the present moment, no matter how it appears, instead of opposing it – something almost everyone in society does. Now one will realize that nothing in life actually ‘goes wrong’. That ‘going wrong’ in actuality simply is difference, movement – Life itself. One will now, with ease, be able to drift along Life’s pulsating waves of ups and downs, without getting lost in them – or more accurately put in modern terms, ‘without drowning in them’.

A good analogy for open-mindedness is the wind. The wind always follows the flow of life and resists nothing. In this way, the wind always arrives at its destination – arriving, while having expended as little effort as possible.

“Life is change, Life is movement.”

One may be discouraged from opening one’s mind to the unknown future – because of fear of failure, of what others might think, mistakes or something else. The unknown future is a part of life, a part of every moment. The uncertainty of the future, or rather, the unpredictability of this moment is the only thing you will ever have – so why not make friends with it?

Fear of failure or fear of mistakes is just as absurd. Failure is not a negative thing. Still, it’s not positive either – it is as it is. It is simply another way of learning. In Life there are no mistakes or failures, there are only lessons learned. If one makes a ‘mistake’ or reaches ‘failure’, one just knows what doesn’t work, and is then one step closer to discovering what truly does work in the long run.

The fear might also be because of what other people may or may not think about oneself.

Some people think that to not care about what other people think has to do with open-mindedness, but that is not entirely the case. Most people think that when one doesn’t care about what others think, it’s because of contempt, anger, withdrawal, etc. In that case, not caring about what other people think has directly something to do with self-esteem, while at the same time being very close-minded towards these ‘other people’ – and is actually ‘caring about what others think’, in disguise. On the other hand, if one doesn’t care about what others think, from the perspective of being able to accommodate what others might be thinking, and in that sense, surrenders to the fact that others might not share the same opinion or perspective as one does about oneself – then, yes, it has everything to do with being open-minded.

Thus, with the proper perspective, not caring about what others think is being open-minded. And being open-minded, as a bonus, in the end, increases one’s self-esteem anyway – so why not just accept the fact that you do not know what others might be thinking? ‘The other’ is most likely too busy to think about you because of all their worrying thoughts about your potential thoughts, take up all the space in their mind. So, why bother? The only one such thoughts affect is the one who thinks them.

One’s inner state is a choice. In the end, it’s oneself, who chooses what one’s inner state, inner ‘sea’, should look like, regardless of outside noise or disturbances. Put attention and awareness inside and observe what’s going on, then the possibility of conscious choice arises, rather than what it had been up until that point – unconscious choices, a phenomenon that appears more like automatic patterns, something the light of awareness, of consciousness will untangle. Therefore, do you want your inner ‘sea’ to be furious and noisy or do you want it to be calm and quiet? I am pretty certain, that I know your answer.

In short, what other people think doesn’t affect you, or as Marcus Aurelius said: “Nothing that happens in someone else’s mind can harm you.”– So let it go.

“But, how do I let it go!?”,I hear you ask. Your mind is trying to make effortlessness into some kind of effort, simplicity into complexity. It is so simple that it seems threatening to the mind, to the ego. Because the ego always tries to make things serious and complicated, it is extremely unfamiliar and unknown to the ego to do something as simple as letting go.

How do you explain how you open your hand? Or how you raise your arm? You just do it. How do you drop or let go of a ball you are holding in both of your hands? You just do it, you just let it go. This is not something that ‘trying’ can accomplish. As soon as you ‘try’ or bring in ‘effort’, you miss it. So, just let it go.

I am telling you, stepping into the unknown, facing one’s fears and stepping out of one’s comfort zone will always benefit you in one way or another – so I really encourage you, do it now, do something that is out of your comfort zone, it doesn’t have to be an extremely overwhelming thing, it can easily be something small, just do it now, begin your journey of altruism!

For an example, if you tend to withdraw from articulating your love for your family or friends, then go, and sincerely say ‘I love you’ to someone you love – or go give this person a heartfelt hug, or even better, do both!

If you are hesitant when it comes to ‘friends you haven’t yet met’, more commonly called ‘strangers’, then, next time you are out in public, with a friendly and kind smile on your face, initiate a conversation with someone you do not know personally. If you get rejected, amazing! No matter what, you still initiated the conversation! Just try, and try again – stay open-minded!

I will never forget what one of my girl-friends once told me after we had gotten to know each other better. She said: “For the first time in my life, when I met you when we greeted each other for the very first time, I didn’t feel judged, whatsoever – I felt so happy and energized in that moment!”

To me, that is what open-mindedness is all about. To be able to create a space in which we feel loved and appreciated, no matter how our body looks or what we say. In this way, we create an uplifting spiral of never-ending mutual cordial altruism.

Open-mindedness not only has the potential to make people happier and more fulfilled in general, but even grander, to create a world of love, peace, and harmony.