179 Breaking Free From Dogma: Reclaim Your Mind and Think for Yourself | Just J Thompson

And just so we can start off on the same page for this conversation, because this can get deep.

This might get a little deep, right? So I want to start off really basic, almost as if we are making it easy for a sixth grader to understand just for right now.

How would you define dogma?

I would define dogma as the attachment to a belief system that because it doesn't require us to discern or question.

And likely in most times, dogma rejects questioning as apostasy, as rebellion, as an attack on whatever the system is itself, instead of as a desire just to go deeper in your understanding.

So I think dogma is any set of thought that does not allow itself to be tested and challenged to prove that it works.

It insists that you believe it, and it points to the fact that others believe it as proof of its effectiveness, as opposed to just showing that it worked.

Very good.

And you already hinted to this earlier, but again, just to kind of make sure this is understandable at a sixth grade level.

And I know a lot of parents listen to their shows with their sixth graders in the car.

So how do we describe consciousness to a sixth grader?

At the heart of consciousness, I would say is awareness, right? And the greater one's awareness, the greater one's consciousness.

And consciousness then could be described as your sense of being.

And then as you develop that sense of being and you focus on that sense of being, you're able to shape it and really see it for what it is and then see what you want to make of it.

So it's like mindfulness in that it does require one to be present in the eternal now, but it is mindfulness on a large scale that extends the present in both directions, past and future.

backwards and forwards, if you will, in our perception of time.

So let me try the sixth grade approach again, because I was a middle school teacher.

I should be able to do this.

All right.

But consciousness is presence of mind.

It is presence of mind that can be tied to our identity, our own self-identity, the truest part of us and who we really are, beyond what people call us, beyond what people see about us, beyond what they think about us.

Even beyond what we have done, it is who we intend to be.

That is our consciousness.