Are
You Hypnotized and Don't Even Know It?
Asoka Selvarajah
When
I was at university, an astonishing thing happened
one evening. There was a hypnosis show on
campus. It was several hours later that night,
long after the show had ended. One girl, who
had been hypnotized, was found in considerable
distress in her room. Nobody knew what the
matter was, but the hypnotist was called on the
telephone. It seems that the girl was still in
a hypnotic trance! Anyway, he said a few words
to her over the phone, and all was well.
The
amazing thing is that the girl had seemed perfectly
normal to both herself and her friends for hours
after the show had ended. Nobody imagined that
she was still under the influence, not even the
hypnotist himself. Yet, she was.
So,
how do you know if YOU are in a hypnotic trance
right now?
"Easy",
you retort, "I have never been
hypnotized". Oh, but you HAVE!...
What
does hypnosis really do? By accessing your
subconscious mind, it changes, either temporarily or
permanently, some part of your world view.
This can be as simple as making you forget your own
name. However, it can also be as profound as
causing a long-standing severe allergy to vanish
while you are in trance, or cause you to paint and
draw with a talent you are incapable of during
normal waking consciousness.
Now,
this type of thing, amazing as it may seem, is
fairly common and the change so dramatic that it is
easy to detect. However, you yourself may be
experiencing a much more subtle trances.
These
were created in a similar way, but over a longer
period of time, and in a less deliberate
fashion. Who was the hypnotist in this
instance? None other than your environment,
your parents, your peers, and even your TV
set. Through a process of repetition, you
slowly became "conditioned", i.e.
hypnotized" into accepting a certain view of
reality. It sinks deep into reality, and
becomes part of "what is", and therefore
is no longer questioned.
Think
about this for a moment. Where did your view
about money come from? Or of the opposite
sex? Or religion? Indeed, where did MOST of
your deepest beliefs, i.e. what you consider to be
irrefutable FACTS, actually come from?
If
you are honest, you will agree that most of them did
not come to you through a process of rational
thinking. Most people get their ideas about
Money, for example, directly from their parents,
through a process of osmosis. From the time
they were young, they were indicted into a hypnotic
trance, where suggestions were repeated over and
over about money, until they became the very beliefs
of the person in question.
The
same is true of many other deeply held
beliefs. We are walking around in multiple
trances - the victims of countless hypnotists, and
we don't even know it. We think we are fully
awake, just like the girl in the earlier story, but
we are actually in trance.
When
you are asleep and dreaming, you don't usually know
it. However, when you awaken, you can say
"Oh, it was just a dream". Yet, when
you were asleep, you could not really tell. It all
made perfect sense at the time, no matter how
bizarre it seems on awakening.
BUT,
when you are awake, how do you know that you are not
really also in some other kind of dream?
Actually you do not. And actually, you ARE!
That
is precisely what Buddhism and many of the other
esoteric traditions teach when they describe the
world as illusory, and a condition to be woken up
from in order to achieve enlightenment. They
are really talking about trance breaking.
Indeed, the name the Buddha gave himself, "Tathagata",
means "The Awakened One".
In
more ways than we can count, we are in the grip of
hypnotic trance. At present, political powers
seek to condition the minds of the masses and
enclose them within the hypnotic trance of
FEAR. It seems to be working, mainly because
people are not awake and aware, and do not guard the
doors of their minds. Rather, they let
anything come in without due examination. As each
person participates in the trance, they reinforce
its reality for everyone else.
Do
you find yourself unable to break out of certain
frustrating tendencies or habit? Do you find
the same situations cropping up for you wherever you
go, even though the people and places change?
Do you "know" that you are incapable of
certain things that other people find easy -
drawing, making money, meeting people, public
speaking or whatever? If so, the chances are
very strong that you are hypnotized, but don't know
it.
The
whole point of personal growth teachings is to help
you examine yourself and see what is really there,
i.e. to see the trances that have been imposed upon
you by unknown hypnotists and break free of them so
that you can live truly and authentically.
Otherwise, you are living someone else's idea of the
way you should be.
The
worst thing about a hypnotic trance is that you
can't tell you are in one, and neither can anyone
else. Moreover, each person has their own set
of trances to deal with, so how can they be of much
help to you? As Jesus said, if one blind man
leads another, the only thing that is certain is
that they will both fall into a ditch!
The
way to break out of your trances is through rigorous
self-examination and study of materials that can
help you awaken, bit by bit. Question
yourself. What ARE your attitudes to Money?
Jews/Moslems? Relationships?
Women/Men? War? Sex? And so on.
Where
DID you get these ideas? Are they really your
own, developed through a process of careful study
and examination. Or did you imbibe them from
the hypnotists of Society, parents, friends,
culture? Are they helping you, or causing you
to be much less than you could be?
If
you seek, you shall find. Indeed, you shall
discover that many of the beliefs you hold sacred
were placed in your brain before you could even
speak. Yes, the hypnosis began that
early!
Going
back to the original story, they did manage to
awaken that girl from her trance. Arguably,
when the hypnotist brought her back to her senses,
she simply returned to her more conventional
everyday hypnotic trance -- the one she was familiar
and happy with. In a sense, she merely awoke
from one hypnotic trance into another. So,
what is it going to take to wake YOU up?.....
Copyright
Asoka Selvarajah 2004. All Rights Reserved.
Asoka Selvarajah is a writer on personal growth and
spirituality, and the author of "The 7 Golden
Secrets To Knowing Your Higher Self". His
work helps people achieve their full potential,
deepen their understanding of mystical truth, and
discover their soul's purpose. You can
subscribe to his FREE ezine, and get his FREE ebook
"Inner Light Outer Wealth" at: http://www.aksworld.com/AspireToWisdom.htm?imk=?LLFU |
