Mental boundaries.

Recently I was having a pleasant conversation with a friend of mine who is associated with a charitable organization. Somewhere during the talk I casually said that I had heard this criticism about this organization being partial to a certain section of the society. That was all... and all hell broke out... This friend got angry and he not only questioned me but also called those, who criticized his organization, as mean and went on to defend his organization, it's people and it's work......

This set me thinking ... I wondered .....just one sentence about the organization and this person snapped instantly and all the pleasantness between the two of us ceased at that very moment and the situation turned grim!!

After I parted from him... my mind was a bit disconcerted and also set off a chain of thoughts about this incidence. Why such a reasonable person and a friend had snapped suddenly at the mention of the some thing he perceived as not acceptable about his organization?

My thoughts turned to similar incidences and the more I thought the more such incidences flashed in front of me about the conflict among different religious & political groups/institutions; between  people of one race and another;  about one State and another; between individuals holding one faith and another... So, the conflict seem to be present in, right from the largest of the organizations to the small groups and  even between individuals. 

This thought really perplexed me!

 The Human species- the most evolved, gifted with the best of  many mental faculties such as intellect & reasoning ...,  which species alone among the various specifies of animals, has many inventions creating amazing machines and made discoveries of the various aspects of this earth and the moon should snap and react to the smallest perceived provocations!? The reasoning seems take back seat while people snap instantaneously, with some small remark or a comment, perhaps may not even be intended to belittle or question the other's beliefs.

I set out to contemplate why this tendency exists in so many spheres of the human beings!... At that moment my thoughts were interrupted when my dog started fiercely barking and when I lifted my head and saw that the neighbors dog had come close to the main gate of the our house and the curious thing that I noticed was that my dog stopped barking as soon as the other dog went away from the gate.

This somewhat seemed to provide some answer to my quest - Forming territorial boundaries seems to be an inbuilt instinct all animals  possess.  Animals anyway are known to create physical boundaries and any trespass by another animal is resisted and the boundary is fiercely protected. But in this case  'Mere survival' seems to be the object of God when he created these subliminal animals that  perhaps would explain the territorial instint in animals.

Then the question that popped up in my mind was, why humans should continue to have this instinct despite being bestowed with the best mental faculties to deal with not only to survive but to lead more evovled life on this earth ?

My mind was contemplating whether the residue of this animals' territorial instinct may have been inherited that  subconciously created the subtle psychological boundaries in human minds?

Then I thought of the countries and their boundaries which are fiercely guarded by their huge army - billions are spent in this exercise - An obvious testimony for the  human physical boundaries! My mind exploded at this chilling thought !

I started wondering, is there any solution to overcome this little residual animalistic  instinct that may perhaps save human beings from this menace of "snapping" and "conflicts" that lead to wars, violence, breaking of relationships and even misunderstandings?

My thoughts turned to God to see if there is something that God has bestowed on humans to overcome this and perhaps it may be time to honorably use that gift to overcome this problem.

Suddenly I thought of the freedom of choice given by God only to the human species which I prefer to call it "free will",  if properly understood, will bring awareness to humans that it is in the exercise of that freedom to choose or free will, they determine who they turn up to be as human beings.

If it was not for the "free will" bestowed by God, then the actions of humans on this earth would just be mechanical acts and there would be no necessity to seek wisdom, pray and differentiate between the good and the bad because everything would be mechanical and there would be no choice at all!

I had read  this  - "between a stimulus and a response  there is a gap and in that gap one has to exercise his/her "free will"  in a  book  "Man's serch for meaning" by Victor Frankle. This may perhaps provide a solution to human "conflicts" that bring  misery and suffering to them.

 Actually this one sentence  inspired Stephen R Covey to write his best seller - 7 habits of highly effective people.

Then I thought about Free will and   Further I thought if we use this free will - No one or nothing can hurt or distract or disturb us - it's our own 'free will' letting the hurt and distraction enter us. 

Then  George Bernard Shaw's quote appealed to me - "The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react." 

Then the conclusion seems to come from one of Osho's quote which summed it all:

"Man has freedom to choose. And this choice can make you pathological or this choice can make you a Buddha. Now it depends on you, how you use your freedom."

So, to exercise or not the free will is yours!