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The way they are...

Bertolt Brecht says, "Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are." This is my most favourite quote on change. I believe change never happens suddenly, it is gradual with many small, seemingly insignificant events leading up to it, causing it just like years of boiling lava finally erupts as a volcano. But sometimes people do change quickly, for better or for worse. And why is that? Their thoughts, beliefs, ideals, outlook towards life and way of living, everything changes. Do outer influences have more power over human mind than his own thinking? 

Comments

  1. ... never say never ... not the least changes! gradual change is adaptation, mostly irreversible, not necessarily always for good - just look at the minds around, conditioned by millions of years of evolution, thousands of years of tradition, hundreds of years of so-called modern-development ! Any breaking away from the mold, getting out of the rut, escape from the destruction within ones lifetime is possible at all only from sudden change - mutation of sorts of the social/ emotional/ intellectual being and that's what the Awakening is about ... Its the deepest inner primordial mind that can awaken to a sudden change for better; all else is the illusions of the brain ...

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  2. ... years of boiling lava eventually erupting as a volcano is more like continuously suppressed emotions/instincts degenerating the existence and blowing up relationships/ lives when it reaches a breakpoint ... whereas gradual change is evolution in response to environmental stimuli - for better or worse.

    The challenge is to become aware of which stimuli elicit what reaction, making seemingly insignificant changes in the self; and choose the environment & reactions that could avoid degeneration, eventual disaster ... to discover that innate intelligence and attain that state of awareness to live in the moment is enlightenment!

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