The Unlearned Mind

 This is a very difficult subject for a know it all such as myself to write about, but I have been realizing lately that being a know it all means you know nothing at all.

"The only way you'll ever learn a thing is to admit that you know absolutely nothing"

Ah, how the lyrics of the songs I have been listening to for years sound so different when they finally make sense.  The problem with a know it all is that they have a full cup of tea, as I wrote about last night.  There is no room for new knowledge in their minds and they cling to the foolish ways of the past.  The learned mind is one full of the impossibilities of life.  The learned mind sees only what it wants to see and believes what it has been taught.  This action in itself limits the human mind and destroys the unlimited potential of the human spirit. 

If you read the news often enough you will hear stories of a grandmother or a mother who lifts a two thousand pound car off of a small child.  Think about that for a second.  Realize that it is an impossibility.  Think logically.  If you put that weight on most any human being's shoulders their arms would rip out of their sockets.  However, for some reason it was possible for these people.  Something in their minds activated and they truly believed that they could lift a ton's worth of mangled steel off of a child.  When they believed, they succeeded.  Scientists call it a singularity, something which has no possible explanation, but somehow is possible. 

In 1963 Thich Quang Duc was set on fire and burned to death on a busy Saigon street while protesting the Vietnam war.  Take a moment and think about his action.  As he burned he sat in peaceful silence, meditating while the flames consumed his flesh.  This in itself is an impossibility.  Think about the last time you were really burned and the pain that it caused, I bet it was excruciating and caused you to cringe, did it not?  He did not stop, drop or roll; instead he sat peacefully as he burned to death.  The thing about Thich Quang Duc was that he had removed the element of pain from his mind completely.  He truly exemplified the unlearned mind.

The unlearned mind is one which holds no impossibilities.  The unlearned mind sees no boundaries or roadblocks.  The unlearned mind is able to accomplish things that the most brilliant scientists on earth can only dream of.  The key is limitations.  When we limit ourselves we are nothing more than speaking versions of apes, but only when we realize that the human mind is limitless do we realize our full potential. 

We are creatures of circumstance, however, when we realize that no circumstance is without reason do we become the full versions of ourselves.  This is my true quest.  I truly wish to heal my broken heart and to conquer my addiction, but what I really desire is the ability to know that my mind is limitless.  It sounds silly but think about, "The Little Engine That Could."  He climbed the hill with sheer determination.  We can all be that engine.  We can be the engine of change in our lives that will take us to a higher plateau of understanding.  We are much more than we believe. 

This is the essence of the unlearned mind.  We must admit that we know nothing, that all our acquired knowledge is bullshit and accept a new way of being.  I desire to unlock this potential in my own self.  I am not looking to set myself on fire in a busy street, but I am looking to realize the full potential of the brain that my higher power put in my head.  I am truly limitless, I simply need to realize it. 

The only one who limits us is ourselves.  We must empty our cups and unlearn the knowledge that has been crammed into our already stuffed minds.  We must unlearn and than relearn.  We must learn that we are limitless.  It sounds so cliche, but we can do anything we put our minds to...we just have to believe in the possibility.