Open and closed concepts

We bear a lot of concepts inside ourselves (opinions, beliefs, explanations, argumentations etc.). Some of them are conscious, and we have thought about them, had discussions and have accepted them for ourselves. Others are unknown to us although they influence our thinking and acting. They are abstractions and generalizations from experiences, which we have already forgotten.

When we have open concepts at our disposal, we have access to more inner openness. The opposite is true in both dimensions: The more inner openness, the more liberated concepts we are able to understand and integrate; the less inner openness we have, the more we are looking for narrow concepts to build into our thinking and to argue with others.

Our wish to grow implies the need to change and open our concepts. The more fears we have, the simpler our concepts will be. A narrow and plain concept will best give us the safety we are looking for. A closed system provides us with the alleged assertion to have an antidote for any risk and any problem.

Our mind is basically a service institution. It creates concept – connections of thoughts, lines of arguments, philosophies and ideologies -, which fit best to the inner climate of feelings. Closed concepts serve for founding and supporting a narrow emotional atmosphere, e.g. the concept that the world is governed by evildoers, or the concept that life is strenuous. This asserts our actual feelings (helpless or burdened) and enforces the momentary mood we are suffering from.

It is easier to adopt open concepts when we feel relaxed and free inside. When we feel connected to life, we love concepts like: Everything is fine the way it is, or: There is something good in every bad experience.

In such times it is also easier for us to look at our own concepts in a self-critical way and to let go of thought patters which do not seem helpful any more. With open concepts, we can meet the world and our companions more tolerant and accepting, while from the viewpoint of closed mental forms, the outer world can only be perceived distorted and limited. Open systems allow inner growth, and the outer perception becomes ample and encompassing.

Closed Concepts

Closed Concepts are marked by the alternative to be either inside or outside. A simple closed concept is: When you are not for me, you are against me. There is one and just one truth. Those who share it can take part, those who do not, are heretics, ignorants or idiots. This is how closed systems can be easily spotted: Those who question or criticize them will be attacked and prosecuted. For these persons are seen as a menace for the concept and have to be brought to silence in one way or the other.

Closed systems have preformulated explanations for everything.  Whatever happens had to come according to the concept. As people live in sin they have to be punished by a catastrophe. As they have improved their ethics, they have been spared from a worse breakdown.

Such closed systems own a kind of explanation generator, which is able to produce explanations appropriate to the rules. It takes care for the concept to stay sacrosanct under any possible circumstances.

Take the example of thought is creating reality. What we think becomes real. What is real, is real only because we thought of it. I think of someone, and the person calls me. The rule has been proved. I think of someone, but the person does not call me. So I have not thought of her clear or intensive enough or had an unconscious barrier against being called. The rule has been proved again, with the help of additional rules generated from the basic rule. Whatever surprises me in the world of real experiences, because I had not thought of it, serves as proof for the rule.

Another example: Someone advocates a certain method of healing or a certain remedy. It has been helpful for him and now he wants to help someone else, whether for money or not. This person gives a try but gets no benefits. So one could assume that the method or the remedy do not work for everyone and for everything. In this case, the system stays open: Research can explore the conditions for healing to take place. When the system is kept closed, the message is that the person has made a mistake in the application or has not had a strong enough belief in the healing powers.

Spirituality and Religion

The world-wide civil society has to move beyond the interpretation courts of single religions as they are full of defensive and aggressive closed concepts. The notion of spirituality, which is on the way of slowly transcending religion, is an indication for that necessity. From the viewpoint of spirituality, there are no significant differences between religions on the level of deeper truths, which are the open concepts within each religious system. Rather, it seems that every religious tradition approaches the sanctuary on a different path and describes it in a unique language by highlighting certain aspects mor distinct than the others.

If we are to find a form of spirituality adequate for the whole of mankind, we need the most open concepts we can find. We have to attune them in a way that the differing formulations can be heard as part of a common and generally shared inner sound.

The Inner Way to Open Concepts

We only can adopt truths when we are ready for it internally. Otherwise, they would threaten us on an unconscious level, and we reject them. Only when our soul has been liberated from these fears which adhere to our limiting concepts, we can put a concept into practice which we might have understood intellectually before. We need the inner vastness of liberty from fears to be able to carry a grand truth.

When we grasp an idea before being able to carry it, it can serve us as guiding star, as motivator for bringing it to fruition. Concepts can prepare for a change by providing the mental fundaments. They can hurry ahead and be comprehended before the inner change happens. They can provide the power needed for facing the fears which we have to encounter. We read a book or listen to a presentation, we get inspired and our inner conceptual world changes and enlarges. This motivates us to give new perspectives a try.

On the other hand, we can use ideas to deceive ourselves. For concepts which are more open than those we used as fundaments of our lives so far, endanger the correspondent emotional scheme. For instance, the concept “You do not need faith to be happy” can encounter the fear about how to live without faith, especially with someone who had used a system of faith as supportive backup. The idea questions a rigid conviction which so far had been a crucial element of inner safety.

So it is also important in the transition to opened and enlarged concepts as we need them in a worldwide civil society, to take care of the emotional inhibitions and restraints and to work on them. Only then can we turn an idea into a living reality with more wideness and openness.