We only have access to our own minds

This is obvious. Yet, how often do we think of what this means? This means that I only have access to what is going on inside myself. I only know what my senses and my interpretations of my sense-data tell me. I also know nothing about what goes on inside other people. It is of course possible to make more or less educated guesses. But even if I guess someone’s intentions correctly, I still don’t know the person’s motives, reasons or how conscious the person is of his or her behavior. I often don’t even know this when it comes to myself. But unlike with other people, when it comes to me, it is possible for me to know for certain whether I’m going against my conscience or not. Whether I do what I know is right or whether I do what I know is wrong. And to me at least, it’s perfectly clear that there are such things as right and wrong. You don’t lie, cheat, steal or do anything else that is deceitful. And I know that you’re supposed to “turn the other cheek”, both literally or metaphorically. But I don’t always manage to do so. I will from now on try my best to do so though. But I will falter.

This “turning the other cheek” principle of course also implies that you don’t attack other people. But if we go into the metaphorical realm, it’s not always obvious what is an attack. I believe that I attack others. I attack when I hold a grudge, because it will manifest itself somehow in my behavior unless I let go of it. I attack when I plan how I’m going to tell someone off. I of couse attack if I actually go ahead and do it.

But someone else might have a totally different, equally valid view of the world. If my belief is correct, that God made the human condition in some way fundamentally the same, I might doubt that someone truly and honestly could come to the conclusion that it is right to treat others in a way that they don’t want to be treated, unless it is to stop them from doing so to someone else. But I cannot know this. The only thing that I can know for sure, is that I know this in my heart. And this goes for many other things, whose wrongness were less obviously recognizable to me. Again, I can only tell what is wrong for me and not for anyone else. I suspect that I share this sense of what is right and wrong in my heart with other people. I also suspect that I share a clouded vision that hinders me from seeing what is right and wrong clearly. Finally, I suspect that we possess visions with different degrees of clarity, that are dependent upon such factors as our ability to observe ourselves honestly and the amount of baggage that we carry with us that we haven’t dealt with.

But I don’t know. I’m not here to judge. The only thing that I know for sure, is that none of us have access to the content of anyone else’s minds but their own, unless they genuinely are mind readers. Some may be. I only know that I’m not one. 

So, if I know that I’m not a mind reader, the simple conclusion that I can draw, knowing the God exists, loves me, cares for me and has everything under control, is that I need to stop looking at what others do. Completely. And instead, I need to focus on what I do. Why I do it. How it affects other people and what it says about me as a person. Stuff like that.