Does The World Own Your Mind?

Do you own your mind?

Is it exclusively yours? Do the thoughts in your head really belong only to you?

Or did the world assign you everything you THINK?

If the beliefs about your ‘self,’ that you hold so dear to heart as being “you,” were extracted from a “world” outside your head, do “you” really exist in any individualized separate sense? Are “you” really there, or just a carbonized facsimile of you-ness, that we all represent?

The egocentric self-concept is only a belief in a separate individual existence. It is an abstraction and of no real concern whatsoever. But what comes as a result of that belief is a cascade of subsequent supporting beliefs ALL extracted from a “world.” These thoughts never stop hammering on you, moment to moment, day by day, year by year. Nevertheless, you have accepted this as “normal” and each day you become more and more desensitized through the chronic, incessant self-defining reinforcement of your egocentric, self-actualizing grandiosity.

“I think, therefore I am” originated from the world. You seem to know that you CAN think, but the thoughts you think are entirely owned by your world. You just THINK they’re yours (a belief that is also product of the world).

NOT one thought in your head can be traced and identified as purely and exclusively belonging to you. You’re a ‘nobody’ desiring authentication as a somebody through a MIND defined by the THINKER as “genuine.” But you will never become genuine in your world, because the world DEFINED YOU.

How can what is NOT genuine be REAL?

What you really claim as “unique” is the way you magically string thoughts together into “beliefs.” The Theory of Relativity was strung together by Einstein, but it was available to every mind, because every mind believes it's victim to the same world. Merely stringing together extracted thoughts to construct into a belief system is not in itself authentic. More like chronic repetition...

The world has always OWNED your mind and you have spent the entirety of your life seeking freedom from that bondage. 

Some have sought to seclude themselves from the world. But in the MIND, even that is a product of the world. You could “live off the land,” but the "land" determines your existence, not you. Others attempt to associate to more profound “concepts” or beliefs, such as spiritual or religious ideologies or accepted scientific theories. Alas, this too, is provided by the world and is only a more subtle form of bondage, seemingly “right” on the outside, but still no actual depletion of suffering on the inside. Some seek freedom through meditation, but the egocentric self-concept, constructed FROM the world, does not really want to leave the world. It wants to become ruler of the world through ever greater CONTROL.

It would seem that there is NO escape from the claim that the world has staked on your mind and so you admit defeat and relent to the pressure. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Hence, you adopt the finite goals and objectives the world assigns, thinking all along that you’ve made up your own mind in denial of how impossible that really is. Ha!

Never forget that the body and all its senses are as much a part of the world as anything else you experience. Your mind is the only part of you with the potential for freedom and nothing else can ever be free.

Yet, the one who plays infinitely in the world, seems to have found a way to break loose from the claim of ownership that the world has staked upon his/her mind (however, keep in mind that this is merely speculative and limited to what I have learned so far through direct interaction and indirect observation and is open to criticism and future correction. Not an infinite player, I am merely a student).

What the body does means little to the infinite player. Yet, no longer is there concern for what the mind THINKS either. The infinite player is NOT owned by the thoughts in his/her head. Correct and incorrect choices are made, but do not seem to matter as correct or incorrect. They care, and often show great concern, but this lacks the demands of the self. Although they do what finite players do and participate in the same functions, they are often seen as odd to finite players.

Interacting with infinite players has shown me that, if you examine your thinking, you’ll see that every thought is associated to an outcome and every outcome is directly related to the world. The infinite player seems to have somehow re-routed this circuitry or transcended it totally.

Nevertheless, they give me so little to go on, since the actions seem no different than the rest of the world. They do what we do. Yet, they don’t THINK about it the way we do and, hence, fail to suffer like we do. In fact, amazingly, they seem to suffer not at all.

It would seem that the world has lost all claim to the MIND of the infinite player. But they do NOT talk about it and, hence, finite players, such as you or I, are unable to define their ways. Hence, we just don't see them at all. How can you see CLEARLY what you don't understand? But they are most definitely there.

Nevertheless, I must continue to try. Have these individuals found a way to be IN the world and not OF it? Are their numbers growing? Why do they not suffer as we do? Why will they not expose themselves and help us all? Or have they been showing themselves to us all along, unbeknownst to us? Why is it so difficult to see them? Do they generate fear in the finite player, stuck on the treadmill of egocentric games?

As you can see, I have been intently studying this for some time and I seem no closer to a definitive answer.

I would ask anyone with information pertaining to the nature of infinite play to please post your comments for publication on this blog. All comments are published in the comment section (even the nasty ones), but those most insightful will be published in the essay section as a post.

As a mere suffering mortal, I am becoming more desperate to learn how to play infinitely in this finite world.

I am beginning to recognize that there are “people” in this world who have transcended all suffering without attachment or association to any esoteric practices or ideologies. They are no more Christian than Buddhist, neither Muslim or Jew, Hindu or atheist. They work in the world and do all the things we do, yet somehow…

…their minds are NOT owned by the world.

Artwork by Brian Smith - "Forever"