I’m out for a nice early morning walk in the park with my best friend, Carol. I’m in my ego – First Degree consciousness. Something weird happens. Although I observe it, I don’t know what happened or why.
I can’t let it go at that! I must know what happened and why.
Due to the power of why, I skew the observation with a Second Degree defense in the form of rationalization – “It was a UFO…” or “It was a bird…” – bending my observations in the direction of what I believe.
I may have even gone so far as to admit I didn’t know while blowing it off with a ready justification – “I wonder what that was? Meh, probably just a… [something I already know]”
I can’t just leave it at, “I don’t know.”
I HAVE TO KNOW! So, I make something up!
One of my greatest fears is fear of the unknown. For me, “I don’t know” is a call to action away from fear! If I have to, I’ll make something up rather than stay in fear. In this regard, justification plays the role of pacifier for me –
Better to know a falsity than not know the truth, I always say!
Justification Bias
I struggle everyday to mitigate my bias against ignorance – seeking to fight off the inclination to be satisfied with a justification, defined as “the action of showing something to be right or reasonable.”
I’ve been faced with not knowing in my life. Happens all the time! Yet, I’m quick to satisfy the need to know with a second degree justification/rationalization – returning me to the relative safety of first degree illumination.
What would happen to me if I were to acknowledge right now that I don’t know? Will I die? Unlikely. Will someone I care about die? Unlikely that, too. So, why am I so afraid? I don’t know! Yet, I’ll bet I could come up with some pretty good reasons why – reasons that make sense to me and justify my actions to mitigate!
How can I exist without the word “because” in my vocabulary? Maybe in my First and Second Degree fog, I can’t! I’m basically forever cycling between feeling safe and justifying myself back from the brink of awakening with some rational reason WHY.
In the realm of separation from oneness that is characteristic of lower degrees of illumination…
I use WHY and its sibling, BECAUSE, to connect cause with effect (the very definition of separation). I must know cause and effect even when I can’t. Back to my First Degree motto: “Better to know a falsity than not know the truth.”
My ego allows nothing in my universe to exist without a “because” – a reason. Even when that reason is “just because” – it’s still a reason, a WHY.
To transcend the lower degrees of illumination phenomenon WHY, I may have to deal with my fear of the unknown. “Beyond fear lies freedom.” Beyond my fear of the unknown lies freedom in the unknown – to which I say…
I don’t know!
