Freeing your mind: Preparing the Lamb for Roasting

I recently posted on Facebook a request for topics to write on, and a friend and ex (won't say "old" for fear of a nasty comeback comment) classmate, suggested I write my views of freeing the mind.  So considering that I usually have an opinion on almost every subject under the sun (No!  I am not a Miss Know it All) here is my view on freeing the mind which is open for debate. 

I personally don't think that we can actually free our mind unless we are prepared to block out everything that goes on around us.  We are constantly bombarded with advertisements from a number of sales companies trying to sell us something because it is going to make us more beautiful, thinner, richer, healthier, or even confident.  We worry about our families, our work about the neighbours having something better than we do.

Then we have politicians and religious leaders all trying to condition us into thinking and behaving in a certain way.  Not to mention, society breathing down our neck and judging every move we make.  Sure, we need rules to govern a country or we will be living in a lawless society, which can cause complete mayhem and destroy the world we live in.  But would we really need so many rules if we had respect and tolerance for each other and shared what we could.  It is the inequalities and disrespect that cause most disruption and stresses in the society we live.

All these influences we have to deal with on a daily basis boils down to mind-control.  Some of us don't even know why we are doing something but because it was a lesson handed down by whoever taught us said that their mother, father, etc. etc told them to do it that way and so we continue the trend.  On this note I would like to share a lesson I learned about preparing a leg of lamb for roasting.

For years some people have been preparing the leg of lamb in a particular way because it was a method handed down to them.  They would wash the leg of lamb and then cut off an end piece and the place it in the roasting pan.  No one seemed to have asked why they needed to cut off an end piece.  I never roasted lamb so it never bothered me.  I prefer to roast something else.

Anyway the story goes that way back in the day of coal stoves and small ovens, the leg of lamb was too big for the pan so in order to make it fit an end piece was cut off.  Today we have bigger ovens and bigger pans but the leg of lamb has not changed its size and yet the tradition of cutting off an end piece continues.

In order to free one's mind we need to ask questions and not take everything literally or just accept whatever someone in power tells us to be true.  They themselves might not know what they are talking about because they have also been conditioned in a certain way. 

We also need to speak our mind because when we don't we let it bother us with the question and answer "Why did I not say something? I should have said something."

I probably step on a lot of toes for speaking my mind and have been asked if I am mad.  I guess the answer to that would be, perhaps I am.  After all, the mind of a mentally disturbed person cannot be reached.  And as I am not in the habit of allowing anyone to mess with my mind even though you might think you are, I am usually a couple of steps ahead of you. 

I stood up in an international conference one day and said that if we continue to allow people or countries to think that they are better than us, then they will continue to have power over us.

We need to free our minds by thinking for ourselves.  It took me a long time to realise that I had a voice and when I found it I opened my eyes and ears to what was and is going on around me and voiced it, especially if it involved discrimination.  "Just because I look like you does not mean I think like you".  An assumption made by many people of the same race.

A free mind is one waiting to be unlocked, yet holds the key.