Modern aircraft such as the Boeing 777 have what’s called an Inertial Reference Unit (IRU) used to get the plane from here to there. Although normally very accurate, the IRU has one potential flaw. If the pilot does not put the correct present position in the box, it won’t know where “here” is, and so it won’t be able to get the plane to “there.” Fortunately, there are a number of warnings engineered into the system to minimize this possibility. More interesting, however, is how this potential problem of present position underscores a similar situation with human beings, whose only “off-course” warning signal seems to be misery and suffering. This intriguing metaphor also goes a long way towards explaining why we as human beings keep making the same mistakes over and over again, all the while expecting a different result. The reason for this unrecognized “graveyard spiral” is that a vast majority of people haven’t put the proper present position in there spiritual navigation unit and are sorely mislead accordingly. Why? Simply because they honestly believe they know whom they are based on the partial and imperfect report of relative thought, sense, and feeling, when in actuality they do not. The result of this most basic of programming errors is that any conclusion that flows from their unquestioned belief in their own relative, self-existent being necessarily subjects them to an endless series of “gross navigation errors” and the “human train wrecks” that invariably follow. Put even more simply, as they say in the computer industry: “Garbage in, garbage out!”

 

(OOMM Chapter 9 Intro)