Trapped in Concepts
Have you ever wondered if the USA, India or Peru really exists? 🙂
Those names are man-made concepts. There are no “real” geographical boundaries between countries. As a matter of fact, there are no countries. Man has “created” that separation.
Those divisions are fictitious, but yet so “real” in our minds.
That concept of a country has many implications. A passport to show where we “belong,” a flag to show our alliance, etc, etc. This is an artificial division among human beings.
We truly believe that those concepts are real.
A couple of days ago, while I was flying on a plane, there was a message from the cabin: “please consider donating your left over monies for some XYZ organization. Last year we collected 1 million dollars. That money made a difference in the life of a child. We accept all sorts of currency.”
The message was that money is able to solve problems. However, what is money?
Paper. Neat paper with the figure of someone “important” in it. Preferably someone who is dead to avoid further fights. 🙂
The “power to buy” is a conceptual idea which works only because we believe in that idea.
Please see the type of indolence! If someone sees a child in need of shelter or food or love… money will solve the issue.
Here is my check. Here .. my left overs… BUT, make me feel good… I am a “good guy.” I am donating…
Concepts over concepts will make us slaves of our own ideas.
Still don’t believe about the power of concepts?
What is predestination or free will? Concepts.
What is hell or heaven? Concepts.
What is life and death? More concepts.
What is “you and I”? Without a doubt… concepts.
Those concepts have definitions, boundaries. Those concepts are a jail for living life to the fullest.
Part of learning spirituality is to free ourselves from all concepts. Free from the busy mind.
We need to learn to unlearn.
The Tao Te Ching, expressed this beautifully:
“Learning consists of filling;
following the Tao consists of emptying.
So the sage does less and less
Until nothing is done.
When things are doing themselves,
Nothing is left undone.
To live harmoniously
in the world,
Let the world do itself.
(Lao Tzu – Chapter 48 – Translated by Ray Grigg)
Part of egolessness is to be free from the attachment to ideas and concepts. The mind has to be free from conceptual living.
As the Hua Hu Ching expressed in Chapter 35.
“Intellectual knowledge exists in and of the brain.
Because the brain is part of the body, which must one day expire, this collection of facts, however large and impressive, will expire as well.
Insight, however, is a function of the spirit. Because your spirit follows you through cycle after cycle of life, death and rebirth, you have the opportunity of cultivating insight in an ongoing fashion.
Refined over time, insight becomes pure, constant and unwavering.
This is the beginning of immortality.”
To be trapped in traditions and mental frameworks is conceptual. Through that mental trap, love cannot flow. Please be aware of this by yourself. Observe how so many of your own “hang ups,” complexes and what nots are coming from your past. They were learned behaviors to adapt to your perception of your world at that time.
Until we identify these conceptual frameworks; love will not flow and all we will have left with is intellectual information.
BapDada expressed this succinctly in the Avyakt Murli of January 6, 1988
“Knowledge is accurate only when it is filled with love – dry knowledge does not give experience – it is love that gives the experience of all relationships from the heart. If there is only intellectual remembrance – remembrance with the head and not the heart – there will be labour in yoga, in service, in inculcation – the intellect will battle even with knowledge – constant questions – many waste thoughts – battle with the self. When there is love there is no battle, because the soul is lost in love, merged in love.
If there is knowledge, but remembrance is like labour, and there is no experience of bliss, power, or peace, it is because love is still lacking – knowledge has reached the head, but it is intellectual only – it has not become merged with the heart. The heart is the symbol of love. Knowledge is the seed, and love is the water – a seed without water will not bear fruit…
…So what is the essence? Do not just have dry, intellectual knowledge, but let there be knowledge within the heart. Have love, and don’t lose any to subservience.”
The mind filled with concepts, ideas, theories, analysis, comparisons, contrasts, divisions, can only bring fear, for any sort of separation, any sort of “I-ness” is in conflict with the “rest.”
That mind is incapable of experiencing love, for love and fear cannot live together.
Empty the mind and fill the heart with the experience of your own truth, then concepts will be seen just as concepts and never as part of life. In that freedom, there could be love.
Love is knowledge. Concepts are not.
Exploring the Depth of Living 
“We need to learn to unlearn”
“The heart is the symbol of love. Knowledge is the seed, and love is the water – a seed without water will not bear fruit…”
“Love is knowledge. Concepts are not.”
Thank you avyakt7!
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Concepts in themselves are neither good or bad. Concepts like ‘countries’ or ‘money’ etc are there to serve a useful purpose. The question which needs asking is “What is purpose does this concept serve and do I agree with it, or support it?” or “Is the useful purpose which this concept serves moral or immoral?”
‘Money’ is just a useful concept which allows us to trade more efficiently and easily. It’s very inefficient to take the day off work, fly to Africa and help dig a well on Thursday and then fly back on Friday. And you might be awful at digging wells. It’s much more efficient to work as normal on Thursday doing what you do best (designing websites or making cheese or whatever) and then send some of the money you earn to a charity who will dig the well on your behalf (assuming the charity is legit of course). Of course ‘money’ is not the same as the ‘violently monopolised money systems’ which are forcefully imposed on us by governments. I’m just talking about money in its natural form.
‘Countries’ in the political sense are also very useful to the ruling classes. The concept of ‘countries’ evolved from the concept of ‘royalty’ which evolved from the concept of ‘tribes’ which were vaguely useful as a survival strategy thousands of years ago before we had any decent technology. Thanks to technological advances tribal living is no longer required to survive (and these days it tends to threaten our survival), but because humans are so slow to adapt the primitive concept of tribal living lives on in the form of statism which has evolved to become a sort of human farming. ‘Countries’ are essentially human farms where human productivity is stolen by the ruling classes (the farmers) at gunpoint in the form of ‘taxes’.
And so the concept of ‘country’ is very useful, but not so much for the general public – only for the parasitic classes (government, royalty, aristocracy etc) who generally do not produce any wealth of their own, and so must steal it from the rest of the population (or get a proper job).
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Thank you for sharing your views!
It is appreciated.
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