The Power and Trap of Agreement - A confession

The power and trap of Agreement 

A CONFESSION 

When I was a little girl, my world was filled with transparent fairy creatures. I could see them everywhere, any time of the day. And so I did not play with toys, as other children did. All day long, I was after my "butterflings", which constantly escaped my grip as they flew under and behind furniture or high at the ceiling... There was only one problem - nobody else could see them.

But how long can you see something, when nobody else can see it? 

Thus, as my 5th birthday was approaching, the ethereal creatures that filled my world began to fade away, until one day they vanished from view. I started to see the world like everyone else did. I did not find my bed decorated with white ribbons when I woke up in the mornings. Nothing was flying in front of the walls. 

When I was a little girl, I felt contempt for money and for people who felt sentimentally attached to material objects. I could not understand why the "grown-ups", who had lived longer than me (as I thought at that time), had not learned something more about life. I believed that the highest purpose of man is perfection, a rather extreme viewpoint, especially for a little child. 

But how long can you believe in something, when nobody else believes in it? 

Thus, as time went by, without realizing it, I started to believe that material possessions are valuable, as well as the acceptance and admiration on the part of other people. My superior ideals faded away like the fairies of my childhood, as I grew up and started having a different view of things. My dreams for spiritual excellence also faded away by the end of high school, through my striving to be as close as I could to accepted "standards". Even my decision to go to the university was not mine (though it could be, had I any idea of what I wanted). Somewhere from behind the screens, my true self guided me to study Physics, so that I might gain an understanding of the universe.

However, during the years at the university I pursued anything but knowledge. And in the following years I played many lower games, and I placed many more screens in front of me, so the world I used to see changed dramatically. I used labels for myself, I identified myself with people, trends and attitudes. 

It took me 40 years to realize the extent to which my view had been distorted by the need for acceptance and agreement. Little by little, I started to rediscover my own viewpoint, putting aside all the colored glasses that influenced the way I viewed the world. I found out that almost anything we "know", all the established and widely accepted "truths" are but a lie. 

Now I smile as I think about it, because nothing can exist without agreement. Reality is that on which most people agree. If ten people see a table and one thinks it is a chair, then this one must be "crazy". Because reality is established by majority, although we are being imbued since birth with the false idea that the world around us exists in its own right, without our participation in its creation. 

Maybe if I had persisted, the winged creatures would little by little become visible by other people and eventually become part of the agreed upon reality. Reality and truth are not the same thing. 

Many times I wonder, as the years go by, if I'm arriving again at the point where I was at the end of my previous lifetime. It would be sad to discover that it took me a lifetime to reach at the same point again. But I really don't think so. Because I learned something that will help me avoid the same mistakes, something I didn't know before. So if I'm going to forget everything else, there's this one thing that I would like to keep from this lifetime to the next: To never take anything for granted, to see with my own eyes and to seek my own truth. This is the only way to continue onward on my journey for new discoveries, new lands and new adventures.