Seeing the cracks in the contextual framework of the false self. (Part 3)

PROGRAMMED BELIEF
We move through our lives with this belief system that has really been built by others. We never stop to question what we believe because we trust those we have learned it from. Having been taught by our parents and grandparents. Religious teachers such as priests, pastors, or gurus. Political leaders, educators, and many others, there seems to be no reason to question what they have taught us.

How many people do you know that go to church on Sunday, listen to a sermon, then go home and never open their bible to check the facts of what was taught? After all, the preacher is just as human as the rest of us and therefore can also make mistakes. While I mean no attack on Christianity, I use this as an example that many people can relate to.

To further demonstrate this point, I remember hearing a story of a young couple, newly married. The new wife decided to make a nice ham dinner for her husband. As the husband watched the wife prepare the ham, he noticed she cut off the ends of the ham and threw them out. The husband asked the wife, "Why did you cut off the ends and throw them out?" To which the young wife replied, "I don't know. That's the way mom always done it."

It sparked a curiosity in the young wife who asked her mother the same question. "Mom, why do you cut the ends of the ham off and throw them out?" To which the mother replied. "That's the way your grandmother always done it."

So the young wife phoned her grandmother to ask her the same question. Grandma, why when you made a ham, did you always cut off the ends and throw them away? The grandmother answered, "Because it would not fit in the only pan I had. Seeing we were so poor I could not buy a bigger one."

If the young husband had not asked the question as to why this was done, the wife would have never been persistent in finding out the answer. Thus, their children would have probably been raised to continue to do the same thing, wasting perfectly good food generation after generation. But with one question, the answer found may have stopped generations to come in wasting much food.

Looking into your own belief systems, built from a programmed knowledge that has been handed down to you, have you ever taken the time to question why? "Why do I believe in this religion?" "Why do I believe in these set of politics?" "Why do I believe I have to have a career to be successful?" Why do I believe that I have to be taller, smarter, skinnier, heavier, more muscular, more wealthy, and every other belief that you have been taught? In asking these questions you can change generations to come. It only starts with one person, asking one question to make a significant change, just as in the story of the newlywed couple.

So this leads us back to the original question. Who are you? Removing the contextual framework of the Three poisons one by one will lead you to this answer. You are not what you have. You are not what you do, and you are not what others say you are.

It takes real courage to move out of your comfort zone and into new unexplored territory.
It is in this feeling of being uncomfortable that you can use to begin your journey to seek out new comforts. Comforts that are everlasting, without limits, based on truth, without contextual frameworks, and cannot be taken from you.