Inner Work

For the week of December 22, 2008

World View

Our world view develops as a learned set of attitudes, core beliefs, and opinions that condition our behavior. Though our world view is mostly unconscious, generally flying below our awareness, it nonetheless directly and powerfully shapes how we think, emote, perceive, act, and respond to the situations, people, and events of our life. Fortunately our world view is not fixed. Clearly it changes as we mature from childhood, through adolescence, and further stages of life. It also changes with the major events of our society and with the more significant events of our personal life.

Parts of our world view can be a benefit, while others may be a bane. Some are clearly destructive. To take extreme examples, note the criminal and terrorist world views. But for all of us, certain deeply ingrained attitudes form the foundation of destructive emotions. Where does our anger, greed, jealousy, or judgmental rejection come from? A Buddhist might rightly say that they derive from the illusion of ego. But at a more accessible level, we may see that such destructive emotions arise from a complex of attitudes embedded in our world view and ready to be activated given suitable circumstances.

Take the example of a person who has a deeply held fear of the world and of the future. From that might come reluctance to voice opinions for fear of being contradicted and shyness for fear of being embarrassed. From that basic fear might come jealousy or a conservative reluctance to change, or a debilitating risk-aversion. Take another example: greed. From basic greed might come attempts to control other people, envy, negative gossip, judgmental criticism, sarcasm, manipulation of others, lying, cheating, stealing, and generally taking more than one’s rightful share. On the positive side, world view might contain deeply held love, friendliness, kindness, generosity, striving for excellence, integrity, and so on. The remarkable complexity of human beings allows the possibility that the world view of one person could have all of the above examples and more in varying degrees. The contents and relative strengths of the features of our world view define our character.

That world view forms the self-created box that we live in. As such it both limits and fortifies us. It limits in the sense of dictating how we are in the world. It limits us inwardly also, because it does not readily admit the actual existence of the higher, sacred worlds and our personal possibilities therein. This blocks our access to and perceptions of those higher realms, which lie in a direction previously unknown to us. World view forms the earth-bound walls of our mind-heart, around which our thoughts and emotions bounce and morph.

But our world view box also benefits and fortifies us by lending stability to our generally chaotic inner life. It creates a place and category for each event, thought and perception, making them all somehow familiar and tractable. By coloring our perceptions and defining our actions, our world view creates our world. It organizes our life, even when we are only half-aware and not fully present. It gives us something to know when we need or seek to know ourselves. And it enables us to present a consistent face to the people around us: they know us by knowing our patterns that derive from our world view. Like a blueprint and a foundation, it supports the whole edifice of our personality.

Our world view evolves by experience, by contemplation of experience and truth, by prayer, and by equanimity. Contemplation of experience lets us see our world view as it is. Contemplation of truth reshapes our world view. Prayer can bypass and refine our world view. And equanimity releases us from it.

The various religions and spiritual paths hold different and sometimes conflicting and irreconcilable world views. Even more than the differences in practices, the differences in world view can become a source of confusion for those who try more than one path. However, the different practices can be complementary. Buddhist meditation practice, for example, can speed one’s progress along other religious paths.

But rather than attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable, we work to go deeply enough into spiritual practice that our newly evolved world view might transcend and subsume those opposing world views. In effect we discover, abstract, and evolve our world view from our deepening spiritual experience. We do this without abandoning our religion, indeed we strengthen that relationship. A view informed by the great teachings, but based in our personal experience gains the power necessary to keep us focused on our inner work.

For this week, let us see if we can understand our own world view, see how it shapes our behavior, and see whether it serves us and our society well. When you notice yourself thinking, feeling, responding, or acting in a particular pattern, recognize that pattern as ultimately arising from your world view. To know your world view is to know yourself, and to know yourself is a major step toward inner freedom.

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