Cognitive Responsibility - 6/3/10

I was waxing philosophical with someone the other day, as I often do.  We talked about an idea of his that I had a hard time reconciling with my own beliefs.  This person seemed to think that negative situations wouldn't arise unless your consciousness allowed them to enter your reality somehow.  Your thoughts don't necessarily create reality as much as they attract like energies, which in turn manifest your earthly experiences.  So your thinking literally affects your circumstance.  When asked by a member of the spiritual circle that he attends what an enlightened person would do in a situation where they were faced with the choice of either killing or being killed, he posited that a true master would never be placed into that situation in the first place.  His consciousness would neither create the situation, nor allow it to somehow enter his life.  Now, I wholly believe THAT, but as I've never met a master nor do I know anyone who has, I'm left with trying to understand why horrible things happen to good people everyday. 

He claimed that all of these people, no matter who they are, thought something or acted in some way as to attract that negative energy into their lives.  So in effect, everyone is in some way responsible for their plight, no matter how big or small it is.  The reason I have a hard time buying this is numerous; what of babies?  What of children who haven't had the time to develop mind-sets or preconceptions?  How about those that DON'T live in their head, like much of "civilized society", and instead struggle daily to simply feed themselves and, ya know, SURVIVE?  How can they be accountable for the atrocities that befall them?  How are they to blame for their lot in life?  Truly, most of the people in this world that are suffer the greatest do so, not because of any misguided belief system or frame of mind, but because of geography.  They just happened to be born in a savage country, or to an abusive, negligent family, or in an area devoid of resources, education, health-care, etc.  And so location, in my mind, is a huge factor in determining who you are and how you think, and it's really kinda shitty to place culpability on someone for, say, STARVING to death because of the way they think. I forgot to make this rebuttal in our conversation, however, but I'm guessing he believes that karmic debt from past lives has a role to play in this, (to which I call horse apples, but let's move on).

Now I think that those of us who don't struggle with finding food and shelter, who have the luxury of creature comforts and economic prosperity, are certainly responsible for our perception of life, inasmuch as we allow our thoughts to affect how we see things.  Bad things will happen to us, such is life, but it's how we perceive and ultimately react to these experiences that either brings us peace or suffering.  Who knows if a thought you entertained weeks ago will create a particular situation to arise in your life tomorrow?  The only thing I AM certain of is when that situation DOES arrive, you will either enjoy it, be passive to it, or dislike it depending on your perspective.  That seems pretty obvious to me, but the obvious has a way of being ignored by many of us.

In any event, I think it would behoove everyone to think about what they're thinking and change the thoughts that somehow lessen an experience or make it unenjoyable, because by doing so...you're manipulating the energy of the moment, and making something that wasn't inherently good or bad into a negative simply by perceiving it as such.