Hello Kim,

We live from within our mental selves. The mental self is much like our bodies. We inherited it from the thousands of ancestors who went before us. We learned from our families of origin, who learned from their families, who learned from their families back millennia. Since we live from within that mental self, we don't have a perspective on it. Everything it is, we believe to be right and true, just as breathing and our hearts' beating are automatic and not subject to thought or reason. We truly are that mental self.

People believe their culture, mores, national identity, religious beliefs, and all the rest of what they've grown up to believe is true is simply right. But they can't see from another perspective because they're looking from the inside out. So when someone has a different perspective, they call it "silly," "absurd," "crazy," "ridiculous," or any of the other words to show that it doesn't fit with what our mental self is. Those words show the person isn't considering whatever that other thought or belief is--just dismissing it. They can't help themselves, any more than we could change our bodies to be something different.

People who can't see anything outside of their mental self are prisoners of the mental self. Yeshua is reported to have said we must become like little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, we have to be willing to be naive and childlike, listening to others and believing that perhaps they have truths. Openness and childlike wonder are the first steps toward spiritual growth.

People who won't look at the reality of the afterlife, psychic activity, and the Higher Power are speaking from prison. They won't be able to see differently until they're willing to relinquish the beliefs of the mental self and be open to guidance from others on this side of life and the next.

But to do that, they must break out of prison.

Love and peace, Craig