Monday, November 05, 2007

6: Stories Told by the Voice of Knowledge

So what is true in our story you might well ask. As does Don Miguel in Chapter 5. The frame is real, and the things we call those things in the frame are real. That is knowledge used as pure communication. A tree is what we've agreed to call things like trees. But almost everything else is a lie. It's the concepts and opinions that contaminate knowledge that becomes the problem. What is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong, what is beautiful, what is ugly, etc.

And the problem begins with the stories we are told by those that came before us. As children we become influenced by these stories. Filled with untruth. We are taught that we need to compete against each other. Etc. But we now see that everything is from a viewpoint. We think we know other people, but all we really know is the story we create about them. And we think we know ourselves, but all we know is the story we've created about our self. Filled with untruth.

And this is an important truth. And, really, a psychological one. If our world is a virtual reality and the main character in our virtual reality (our self), is a story as well, something we've created with belief through passed-down knowledge, then by changing what we believe about our self, through awareness and truth, we can change our story.

Often we think if we change the secondary characters in our story, then we will change our story. But the secondary characters are only stories we've created. It's the main character we need to change. And when we do, the secondary characters will change as well, not in their physical presence, but in what we believe about them.

And since our stories are always changing anyways, every day, year after year, we now have the opportunity to change our own story. The fifth truth? We only know the stories we create about others and our self, and only by changing what we believe about our self, we can change our story.

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