What makes people unable to see beyond themselves?

Vic Shayne
author
The Self is a Belief — The idea that causes suffering

Many people seem blind to the needs and suffering of others. We see this every day, and as of this writing we see this indifference oozing out of the Trump White House in a stream of racist, divisive, intolerant, and insensitive comments. But it’s also an everyday occurrence on the most mundane level. What causes such indifference and selfishness?

What do people want?
What people want is called desire. So we have to go into what desire is, and where it comes from. This begins with the egoic mind.

The egoic self, the “I,” is nothing more than a belief that comes about by an accretion of thoughts. These thoughts come from psychological conditioning, especially in early life. The mind is influenced by parents, teachers, religious leaders, schools, relatives, the media, society, culture, and so on. All of these influences impress themselves upon consciousness so that there arises a belief that we are separate from the whole of consciousness, the wholeness of life. We are, in essence, bred to be self-centered to varying degrees.

The egoic self mistakenly believes it is separate from all others and everything else. This is because it is so fixated upon its associations and identities that it cannot perceive the wholeness that truly exists. This creates a wanting for wholeness, a desire for things to fulfill itself. This endless desire leads to suffering, because the egoic self is constantly trying to get pleasure and avoid pain, which is a never-ending cycle of disappointment and temporary joy. When the egoic mind is experiencing pleasure it is apt to be looking ahead to recreate more pleasure. In the extreme this is called an addiction, but in most cases it is just an inescapable loop.

The search for happiness is blinding
The egoic self can never be fulfilled; this is its nature. The search for happiness is persistent and blinding. It is selfish to the extreme, and the reason why people cannot see past themselves. It’s as though the egoic mind is a veil of misunderstanding that stands between the mind and the reality of the wholeness and interconnectivity of all humanity and the world.

The mind must turn in upon itself
The way out of this suffering wrought by the egoic mind has been taught for millennia by sages in the East. It is simple, yet very few are ready to embark upon it. You have to get very, very tired and sick of the merry-go-round to which the egoic mind is heir — chasing pleasure and avoiding pain.

But alas the time comes when you have been conditioned enough by your suffering that you feel that there must be a way out, a way to stop the madness at any cost. Of course, people may do this by way of drugs, alcohol, extreme activities, endless entertainment, or even suicide, but these are temporary fixes that do not challenge the mind to seek its own nature.

The only way out is in.

The sages of Vedanta, Hinduism, and other philosophies that exist to this day, have taught that the ultimate way out is to have the ego turn in upon itself. The only way out is in. This means that the mind is used to expose its own conditioning and lay itself bare for inspection. It is through intense and persistent observation of the egoic mind that a real change occurs to alleviate the suffering. This process shows you that the egoic mind is no more than a belief that is not only unnecessary, but also neurotic, insane, absurd, limiting, divisive, angry, greedy, petty, destructive, and full of fear. Observation at long last brings an end to the identification with all things of the body and mind, which means an end to the cycle of pain and pleasure.