This is just a café rap inspired by a previous post to Richard Hughes earlier today, about whether "demos" of people flying would radically change people's minds about the TMO. If you didn't like the original rap, you aren't going to like this one, so hit NEXT now. :-)
So what is the Big Bad Boogey Man, the thing that most people on this planet are most afraid of? Some are going to say death, but I'm going to disagree. That's kind of a given, and most people have found ways to either never think about the prospect or to have some comforting belief about what death involves. So, are most people most afraid of terrorism? Of losing their jobs or a way to make a living and ending up poor and homeless? Of bad things happening to them or their loved ones? If you watch the news, it's clear that all of these are BIG fears in the minds of a lot of people on this planet. But I don't think any of them is the biggest fear, the Big Bad Boogey Man himself. I think that the BBBM -- the thing that most people are most afraid of -- is cognitive dissonance. Most people are most afraid of changing their minds. I think that the thing they fear the most is that the belief systems that they have constructed or adopted to "explain" the world around them and how it works are wrong or incomplete, and that if they ever admit this, they'll be in a position of Having No Clue, having to start over and come up with a *new* belief system to "explain" the world around them. My theory -- and it's ONLY a theory, a half-baked opinion -- explains SO MUCH of what we see in the world around us, and on this forum. Think about the sometimes over-the-top ways that people react to the idea that maybe Maharishi wasn't right about everything, or that America is not exactly the beacon of wealth, happiness, liberty, justice, and freedom for all it pretends to be. Some people go CRAZY when these beliefs are challenged. And WHY? Well, I think it's because they perceive -- and correctly -- that if the things that these heretics are saying about the things that they believe are true, then their beliefs themselves are not true, or not complete. And if that were so, what then? The people who react with anger or TBness IMO perceive a quagmire of *cognitive dissonance* lurking behind the heretics and what they are saying. And they're right. But WHY do they fear this? One would think that a seeker of truth would be *pleased* to discover that his previous beliefs about a subject were incorrect or only partially correct. That would mean that the seeker HAD LEARNED SOMETHING NEW. He or she would have *grown*, expanded his or her knowledge of the world around them. They wouldn't have "lost" anything at all, except the illusory certainty that they knew everything about the world around them already. As a Buddhist, what I see in the overreactions some have to their core beliefs being challenged is attachment. If they were unattached to their beliefs, what would there be to fear in having to change them, based on new information? And yet people DO fear changing their beliefs. They fight WARS to keep from changing their beliefs, and to impose those beliefs on others. I think these people are fearful for no reason, and that cognitive dissonance is a Good Thing. I think it's the thing that indicates progress -- both intellectual progress and spiritual progress. If you still believe exactly the same things today that you did last year, IMO you have made no progress and learned nothing new during that year. The fearful would say, "But...but...but my beliefs haven't changed because they're RIGHT." That could be. Or it could be that their fear that their beliefs AREN'T right or complete has made them attack or close themselves off to new knowledge that might reveal that their previous beliefs weren't right ENOUGH. They weren't quite "there" yet. So, my theory is that the Biggest Baddest Boogey Man for most people is the fear of cognitive dissonance -- the realization that something you believed could not possibly happen IS happening, right in front of you. Or conversely, that the things you believed with absolute certainty will happen aren't happening. When they are confronted with the potential for cognitive dissonance, they react with the "fight or flight response" -- they lash out or close down, to try to make that potential GO AWAY. IMO, what they are lashing out at and closing themselves off to is the universe trying to teach them something new.
