The Story
Take a child, say an 8-year-old boy. Something random happens one day – maybe he dropped his toy or felt ignored, and he got angry at his mother. It was a natural, small burst of energy, nothing more. But the mother, in her own moment of frustration, scolded him: ‘Why are you behaving like this? Why are you such an angry person?’ Those words landed like a small seed in his mind. He learned that day for the first time, ‘I am an angry person who gets angry easily, according to my mother.’ It does not feel like a big deal at first – just a small assumption.
Now next time he felt angry – the need to shout, express, he remembered. He did not get angry – just to prove that he is not the angry person his mother described. But what is he proving to? He is trying to prove to his own assumption that he is not what he thinks he is. After doing this for sometime he starts to feel the pain of repressing this energy within him. It takes a lot of effort to repress anger that wants to come out. It takes a lot of mental effort not to let it flow. He starts to feel heavy from the inner fighting that has already started within him.
After a while he can’t hold it anymore. Now he gives up, and the anger comes out – one day. He spilled a drink or lost a simple game – and now all the repressed anger starts to come out. A few more people were present that day – his father, his friends and other family members. They all pointed out to him ‘Why are you getting angry? It is just a small thing. Calm down.’ Now the child really starts to believe that he is in-fact a very angry person who gets angry at small small things. That initial assumption got strengthened again.
Now think of this cycle – repeating over again and again for years, decades and thousands of times. By now he is 30 yr – and his assumption has gotten rigid over time. By now he really really knows for sure – as a matter of fact, 100% true, absolute reality that he is an angry person. His mother told him, his father told him, in his school his teachers told him, his friends have also told him, in his first relationship his girlfriend was having problems with his anger, and so on. Now, by 30 he knows he is an angry person, an absolute truth.
Now that his own assumption has become an absolute truth. He does two things to prove himself:
One he proves it by trying not to get angry. He walks away from conflicts, he punches boxing bags when he is alone, and he controls himself. So much effort, so much internal fight he has created. He goes to a meditation retreat trying to learn not to get angry, he goes to a therapist telling him how angry of a person he is and what he should do to not get angry, he runs around trying not to get angry. All this just to prove to himself that he is not an angry person.
Second, after a while this does not work. Because he still assumes he is an angry person. The controlling action of trying not to get angry is extremely energetically expensive; it needs a lot of energy to keep fighting. So now he gives up. He gets angry at delayed email, a normal driver, traffic lights, and it explodes out. This again gives him a glimpse of his own assumption – well see I am an angry person. He starts indulging in his anger.
Now he does not even need anyone in the outside world; his own mind has started this. He repressed his anger, trying not to get angry, and then starts getting angry at small things proving to himself that he is in fact an angry person.
This is not just about anger. This is the story of most of us. It is the story of how our own mind keeps driving us to extreme rigidity and fixed personality in life. We say, ‘well I am this kind of person – I am introvert, sensitive, angry, insensitive, selfish, selfless, good, bad”. We even say, ‘I am not enough’, ‘I always get abandoned.’ ‘I don’t fit in’, ‘I am not loved’. We have made so many assumptions of what we are and how we are, based on small things like the mother scolding the child.
Maybe someone called you shy, because you didn’t speak in a group in your school. You assumed ‘Ok I am a shy person.’ Next time you hold back words just to prove you are not outgoing, you are shy. And now you are 40 – still you assume you are that shy little kid who could not speak that one moment when you were 10.
You cried one day, and your father told you ‘You are too sensitive; toughen up. Don’t be weak’. You assumed ‘I am sensitive.’ Now you repress tears to prove that you are strong and an inner war starts in you. A war of decades – you trying not to be sensitive and then in that very trying you became more and more sensitive.
You felt abandoned by your parents. Now you assume; ‘I am the person who people abandon.’ Now you are running around the world trying to prove that no, you are not abandoned, all while finding people who are going to prove to you your initial assumption that – ‘You are the person who gets abandoned.’
You felt rejected once romantically. Now you assume that ‘You are the person who gets rejected, you are not enough.’ Now you go around trying so hard to prove to yourself that you are enough, all while finding everything in the world that makes you feel like you are not enough.
So this is the story of most of us: somewhere in the past, that little child was told you are this kind of person; and we spend a lifetime proving that no we are not, all while becoming that exact kind of person.
Mind
Why does this happen? When you really look at it, it sounds so absurd, almost stupid. Why would anyone keep proving something that hurts them? Yet this is the reality for most of us, playing out quietly behind every repeated pattern, every stuck emotion, and every rigid regret of ‘This is who I am, and this is how my life will ever be.’
It is because that is how the mind works. Think of the mind in terms of a machine or mechanism. And this self-reinforcement is how the mind works. The mind starts collecting cues and information from outside to prove its assumption is true. Here is a classic experiment:
In a classic 1980 psychology experiment by researchers Richard E. Kleck and Angelo Strenta at Dartmouth College, participants (mostly women) were told the study was about how a facial disfigurement affects social interactions. A makeup artist applied a realistic-looking scar to their face, and they saw it in a mirror to believe it was visible. Just before meeting an interviewer or stranger, the scar was secretly removed without their knowledge, so their face appeared completely normal. Despite no scar being present, nearly all participants later reported experiencing discrimination or negative treatment—they described others staring, avoiding eye contact, acting awkward, showing pity, or making subtle, biased comments based on their “scar.” This happened because their belief in having a visible flaw shaped how they interpreted neutral behaviours, turning their assumption into a perceived reality.
This study clearly shows how the mind literally does everything it can to prove that the assumption it holds is true. And sometimes it can be a completely false assumption, yet you will see the outside world as if what you assume is totally true. And one thing I want to add here: It is not just some surface-level distortion of perception, it is so so deep that your whole body thinks or believes what you assume to be true. The reality reflects back at you what you believe or assume to be true, confirming it.
You will see that our whole scientific culture is based on this because it originated from the mind. In science, you form a hypothesis (an assumption dressed up in a method), then design experiments to prove it true, sometimes overlooking what doesn’t fit. Psychology, therapy, even self-help books—we assume a story about ourselves (“I’m broken,” “I’m anxious,” “I’m unworthy”), then chase fixes that keep circling back to reinforce the very story we’re trying to escape.
It is very difficult for the mind to drop a generalisation once it’s made. The nature of the mind is to assume and to generalise. To say “I am an introvert” or “I am too sensitive” or “I always end up alone” gives the mind something solid to grip. Suddenly, there is safety in the known. “Okay, now I understand myself. Now I know how to behave, what to expect, how to protect myself.” The mind can relax a little; it has a story, a role, a script. And in that story, it feels safe to dance. When you assume you’re introverted, the mind feels secure enough to prove it: you stay quiet in groups, you decline invitations, you tell yourself “see, this is me,” and every time it confirms the assumption.
Why does the mind do what it does? Simple – that is how the mind is. Without this, the mind would collapse. What would remain is silence, space and emptiness. And someone who has never felt silence – true silence is the most dangerous thing to experience. Because it is like the death of all the stories and assumptions that the mind has convinced you that you are this person.
Here is something from my own experience:
When I experienced a silent mind for the first time, for 5 or 10 seconds, I ran away from my studio where I was sitting. It felt so dangerous. It was such a dangerous feeling. Slowly overtime I saw that silence is in-fact a natural state of the mind without any assumptions.
So we dance, we run around, to prove what we assume to be true. Because we are afraid of this silence. We would rather spend our whole life suffering rather than facing this silence. So we spend our lives in this prison of the mind.
Awareness
What do we really, really look for in life? I think we look for someone or something that will take us out of our own prison of the mind. I think we look for something or someone to make us feel really really alive. I think what we really want is to experience that we are not just who we think we are. We are more, we are unlimited.
So we would like to get out of this prison that we call the mind. That is why sages across centuries and traditions have always pointed to the same truth: the only real way out is to be aware. Not effort, not technique, not fixes. Just looking, looking deeply, honestly at your mind’s assumption continuously. And with this self-encounter of your own beliefs (no matter how dark, how perverted, how weird, how absurd they are, what we assume we are), a transformation begins on its own.
So the only real solution is looking, without judging. Observing without running away. For some, it will be a long road, and for some it will be a short one, but it will happen. With constant observation, constant awareness, the assumption loses charge; they lose their grip on you. First, you will experience only moments in your life when you are out of your prison, and that will be a wonderful experience. But slowly, by slowly, if you keep observing, the mind will start collapsing. It is not a linear process, it is not a safe process, but it’s a profound process.
And here is the deepest part: the greatest service you can offer to humanity, to you or anyone you meet, is to have no assumption in your mind. Not the forced non-judgmental practice, but truly effortlessly having no assumption within you. We keep complaining to our parents – ‘I am not a child anymore’, it is because parents still assume you are that small child who grew up with them. And assumptions hurts. Like this, any assumption made on life – hurts life. Not in a poetic sense, but in a literal sense it hurts. So the greatest service to life is to experience life moment to moment without any assumption in the mind.
When someone comes to you and says, ‘ I don’t think I am good enough’. We do two things. One we do something to make them feel like they are good enough, and in this trying, we show them that they are actually not good enough. Second, we try to exploit them even further to make them feel like they are not good enough again. But to simply let it flow and pass in life as if that statement is simply momentary, but not a reality, is what transforms the other person.
So the only service to life is by becoming empty, silent and open to life moment to moment. In this, you will see that your emptiness, silence, spreads slowly towards others. Because the moment you don’t cling to assumptions you give yourself and others permission to flow; to change, to transform.
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