Freedom from Bias

Bernadette Roberts

To put an end to unconscious judgments is a form of detachment from our biased opinions and limited ways of seeing. It is an end to putting others down – which is an unconscious way of building ourselves up – and at the same time, it is a recognition of the validity of each individual's view. If we are stuck in our own views, and cannot find a common ground of understanding, then all exchange bogs down in trivia and waste of time.

Little children talk either to themselves or at each other because they are incapable of following the other's line of thought, incapable of seeing the other's point of view; thus little children have no mutual ground of communication apart from physical presence. I once had the opportunity to tape the conversations of young children, and always found them amusing and insightful - leading to understanding their mentality. But to listen to adults carry on in the same fashion is not amusing; yet it happens all the time - each one talking on his own track. Until we can step outside ourselves, there can never be communication with others or any level of understanding between us, and without this, no relationship is possible, we are no more than physically present to one another. 

The Path to No-Self, pages 160-161