Perception Is Not Reality

Once I had a profound spiritual experience. It was so vivid and so outside of my view of reality at the time that it could not fit into the rules of the universe as I knew them. It was a game changer. Before this time I knew I was right. I knew that certain things that were done were wrong. The power of being so right made me wrong. I had given myself license to act outside of my own values due to the injustice in which I had been treated.

The experience I had was so overwhelming that I had a new challenge. Either I had a religious epiphany, or I had become mentally ill. This was one of the most important moments of my life. It loosened me up from my concepts. At this point I began to think of things in terms of my perception rather than the absolute certainty that I was right. 

This was so very beautiful because it released me from the prison of my own opinion. Not all at once. It is a freedom that is still developing, and one that I am still in the process of earning. Gradually, sometimes slowly and sometimes in great bursts I began to question my certainty. This moment  began to open the door to how much I really actually knew to be true, and how much I was and am relying on opinion. 

There is nothing more dangerous in this world than a human being who knows they are right. Think of the violence and intolerance excused in the name of God or justice. You can be right and wrong at the same time. You can be firmly convinced of your perception, but hiding from the truth, that your opinion, no matter how strongly held, is simply that: opinion. It does not mean that you are not right, but simply that none of us can see how far we are wrong. This is a path of courage.