Ever heard the old saying, “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are”?

Ever take a moment or 7.34 years to think about this?

This is what I’ve made out of it so far:

We make sense of the things we see happening around us by labeling them with language, right?

So, when we look at reality, we’re looking through the screen of what goes on in our minds—our thinking, and our perceptions (which are conditioned by our past experiences). It’s like sunglasses, but worse. We’re viewing reality through the heavy veil of thoughts.

Something that magnifies this human condition and makes a problem out of it is one’s identification with thinking—with believing all of your thoughts and having no space to yourself outside the movement of thought.

That’s what’s referred to as the “unconscious condition” in new-age communities.

People in this condition are burdened with a heavy ego—making life more difficult for themselves and others around them.

But, ego isn’t something that’s separate from thought. The ego is just another label, just another idea. It’s not apart from thought.

It’s just thoughts that a person has identified with.

The first moment of freedom comes when they realize that some thoughts have been going through their head for years… and that they’re only thoughts… and that they’re not thoughts… they’re the awareness behind the thoughts.