GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

I like to imagine a sentry standing guard at the gateway to my mind. His job is to protect my peace and his weapon is enquiry, using the above question.

If you catch yourself mid-story or even mid-sentence and ask yourself the above question, you will find that the answer is very often: “No, I can’t be certain.” What you will also discover is the following:

When you believe the assumption you suffer.

When you don’t, you experience peace.

Let’s take a look at some concrete examples.

I remember one particular meditation workshop I taught. We always began the weekend with an hour-long introductory talk after which, people could decide whether to sign up for the class or not. As the talk began, I was aware of a man sitting to my left who seemed very tense and agitated. Each time I happened to

glance over, he seemed to be glaring at me, arms crossed, with an intense look on his face. I could feel his eyes boring into me.

Feeling uncomfortable and distracted, I thought: “This guy really doesn’t like me”.

When the talk ended, rather than just leaving, as I had expected, (and secretly hoped) he came up to me and I thought: “OK, here we go,” expecting a tirade of abuse or something similar.

I was taken aback when he said: “Thank you for the talk. I found it fascinating. Is it really possible to be free of painful thinking?

I feel very stuck inside myself. Do you think these techniques could work for me?” He was much softer now and seemed to be genuinely intrigued. “In my experience, yes.” I replied. He ended up taking the class. The discomfort I had experienced for the past hour had not come from the man himself but from my mind’s interpretation – from the false assumptions I had made about him.

A friend of mine had been divorced for five years and had not seen or heard from her ex-husband since. She had moved away from the city where they had lived together, and he had since remarried. As chance would have it, she had reason to return and was telling me over coffee how she sometimes wondered how he was and how nice it would be to see him again.

“So why don’t you get in touch and let him know you are coming?” I suggested.

“There’s no point.” she replied. “He won’t want to see me.”

I then asked her whether she could be certain that he wouldn’t.

After all, people can change a lot in five years, and who knows?

Maybe he would like to see her too?

I suggested that she let go of her assumption, be totally innocent and let him know she was coming, without any attachment to his response. So she agreed to send him an email informing him when she would be there and of her desire to meet up with him.

Two days later, she received an email in response. It turned out that just that week he had also been thinking how nice it would be to see her again.

Here is another example.

I was recently talking to a man who was experiencing terrible feelings of guilt because he had little or no desire to attend the local mosque for daily prayer. He dragged himself along each day out of a sense of obligation and to keep up appearances. He also had a genuine fear that God was judging him for his lack of faith.

I asked him how he could know for certain that God was judging him – or that others were judging him for that matter.

“Because it is written in the Koran,” he answered.

I then asked him how he could know for certain that what was written in the Koran was true. (I certainly don’t believe that everything written in the Bible, another holy book, presents an accurate rendition of what Christ taught.)

“Faith,” he answered, although he also confided that what he was actually most concerned about was that his faith seemed to be deserting him, even though he had recently been to Mecca.

And there is another belief – that going to Mecca should increase one’s faith.

I asked him if he would be willing to give me an honest answer to the following question – a straight yes or no. He agreed.

“Can you be absolutely certain that God will judge or punish you for not going to prayer?”

“No” he answered.

“How do you feel when you believe you will be judged?”

“I feel guilty …and worried,” he replied.

“And how do you feel when you don’t believe it, or at least question it?”

“I feel relieved,” he said

Now, his belief may or may not be true but that is not the point.

The point is, how can he know for sure? What is the point in suffering over something that may not be true?

Incidentally, this man also happens to be an extremely gentle, kind and giving person. Many of the ‘faithful’, in my observation, come across as hard, rigid and unforgiving – which raises another question: “How would an allegedly loving and all-merciful God wish us to be?” - assuming she had any preference, of course.

Or maybe there IS only God, appearing in the guise of both the kind man and the angry man. Who knows?

A Christian, a Moslem, a Buddhist, a Hindu, an atheist and an agnostic would probably all give a different answer, according to their own personal beliefs.

So, “Be open to the possibility that everything you believe to be true may not be.” This is the path to peace.