Sunday, February 21, 2010

Creation Stories

My best mountain Climbing Buddy got a Master's degree from UCLA in History specializing in Buddism and Sanskrit. During his 6 years at UCLA as undergrad and then being in the Master's program there from 1969 until around 1976, we had many lively discussions about all aspects of religion, philosophy, and mysticism. The winds of change blew all across society worldwide during those times so it was a good time to be young and learning and alive amidst all the foment worldwide.

One of the many good things for me to come out of all this was an attitude that all religions were equal, just like all cultures were equal. Yes. People in each religion and in each culture tended to be naturally biased towards there religion and their culture. But imagine if you came from another planet with no earth biases at all. What religion and culture would you choose? Likely your reaction would be governed almost completely by the people you met and if you made a friend that became a mate here. These are the most likely biases that would be naturally created within you. So every bias you have now would not exist when you first came here.

Because of this lack of ANY bias it is useful to say that all cultures and religions are equal if you come to them without any preconditioned biases.

So, in thinking this way, I believe that it is incredibly helpful for each person to write their own creation story that is not hopefully preconditioned by what they have been taught, but as much as possible directly from their own experiences since the womb of waking and dreaming experiences. In this way one can create their own version of what the universe is according to their own experiences.

I believe this is unbelievably important in navigating one's way forward as a being on earth. Otherwise many people just seem to wander around in confusion trying to live up to other people's expectations of them. And we all know this NEVER works.

Until you literally are: "The captain of your own ship and the master of your own destiny" you are just a fool, a slave or a child.

I believe in itself this is one of the reasons why college seems to be helpful to so many. It is not necessarily what you learn in college, it is realizing "You can literally do ANYTHING". The important thing about college and life in the end is to "Live it to the fullest". And no one can do that if they are being held a slave to someone else's dreams. Until you can live your own dreams you might as well not be alive. However, if you are still growing up you need to do this first before you can live your own life fully.

So, along about 16 through 21 to 25 I believe this is a good time to write your own creation story. Whether it is one word, one page or an opus. Still, I think it is an important thing to do to better understand yourself and where you are and where you want to go.

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