In the previous article (this one), I explained that pending judgment causes flashbacks, which are recurring past negative events. In other words, choosing how we respond to those events frees us from clinging to the past.
Today, let’s look at what hinders our proper judgments.
How to solve our spiritual problems
Sometimes, we want to solve our mental confusion, which makes us mentally unstable and drives us to seek more love.
It means there is an error in the judging process.
We must judge to live. That is the nature of intelligent beings, like humans. In other words, the purpose of our consciousness is to think and decide according to the unique situation with a problem.
However, if we cannot decide how to respond to the event, it becomes a pending matter, and that issue will repeatedly surface in our consciousness until we decide on a response. That is the mechanism behind flashbacks. We can still struggle to decide how to respond, even for events decades ago.
Today, I will explain why mental confusion prevents our judgments and torments us spiritually. This overall picture may help you resolve your mental problem.
How our minds work
Developing our rationality and making rational decisions, including how to handle the past, will naturally resolve our spiritual problems. In other words, a mental problem is a matter of rationality, not spirituality. Seeking love and spiritual fulfillment will be ineffective for empathic and logical people, in my opinion.
To explain that, let’s look at our mental system.
Making rational judgments continuously eventually enables us to focus on the present issues. Even if we make mistakes and fail, we learn from that experience, let go of the past, and live for the future. However, being unable to make decisions on how to respond keeps us clinging to the past and causes various mental problems.
There are four processes when we judge events, as follows:
- Recognizing the event, which always involves a problem
- Analyzing the problem
- Judging and responding based on rationality
- Receiving feedback and moving on to the next problem
Mental confusion stops our judgment process in the analysis of step 2. It makes it impossible for us to identify the cause and our responses.
Inappropriate use of ‘why?’
The unreasonableness of the surroundings, especially from influential people like parents and teachers, often created our confusion.
The primary reason for our mental turmoil is inappropriate use of ‘why.’
For example, when we are children and immature, we cannot do many things well. Children are imperfect, and that is natural. However, our parents or teachers might have blamed us: ‘Why can’t you do it?’ or ‘Why don’t you know it?’
Those words are unreasonable. There is no reason children don’t know. It is natural for children not to know things until they are taught. The same goes for being unable to do things well. It is normal for children to be unable to do things until they have developed the necessary skills. In addition, children have individual differences. The fact that other children can do it doesn’t necessarily mean that the child can do it now.
In other words, there is no answer to that ‘why.’
However, if the child is logical and frequently encounters situations that require concrete responses, they eventually look for other reasons. They ask themselves, ‘Why can’t I do it?’
That was the beginning of the logical confusion. Although the right answer was ‘no answer,’ we sought other reasons. That created complex logic, such as trying to be perfect, wanting to become more capable than anyone else, blaming our incompetence, being unable to accept failure, and desiring to be accepted.
Focusing on logic rather than love
Those complexities are matters of logic, not love or emotion.
The biggest misconception of ours is confusing a problem of logic with one of affection.
Everyone has love, including you, your parents, and your teachers. You are full of love.
What makes you mentally suffer is logical unreasonableness. Although people have love, they are terrible at expressing it. They, including us, are just expressing love in extreme, distorted, and hard-to-understand ways.
In the case of our parents, they believed that making their children socially successful was love. They had love, but their way of expressing it was indirect. They didn’t know how to convey their love efficiently. Confusion made them choose a distorted way.
Mental confusion, an inferiority complex, and inner complexity—they are fundamentally all the same thing. You are neither lacking in love nor inferior; you and your parents simply don’t know how to express it efficiently.
When you understand the accumulated, wrong logical system of ‘why’ inside you, you can let go of the heavy inner rules that burden you. In that moment, you will be freed from mental turmoil.
That enables you to express more directly, moderately, and rationally. You can convey love and feel it. That satisfies the desires you have had for a long time.
Conclusion
That is how mental confusion prevents our judgments.
It is a matter of rationality, not spirituality.
This overall picture may help you resolve your mental problem.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
