Tagged: identification
Free movie time through the mind
The master said to his disciple: “There are 3 fundamental aspects in learning about the self while you are at the stage of going beyond the mind. First, is the observation of the mind through constant awareness of the content. You may notice there is day dreaming. That content is not in the present, but something in the past or future. Emotions will be influenced by content. It is like watching a movie continuously in your mind. For instance, you remember a sad story which happened in the past. The mind plays that movie. That story is not real anymore. The personality experiencing that scene is no longer here. Everything has changed. Feeling sadness in the present is fuel for more movie time; supporting repetition of that mechanism. Second, is identification with those thoughts. Unaware individuals will take a side and defend a particular view given by their own conditioning or experience. These individuals totally identify with their minds. There are other individuals who analyze apparent facts and assume the truth, but those are usually partial conclusions. The third aspect, is to be aware on how that content, identification and conclusions creates ego, that is a personality which separates from the actual movie of Life, without ever becoming aware of their inter-dependency. ”
The disciple listened attentively and then said: “Master could you explain with an example?” The master replied: “John speaks with Jane. John had an agitated day by dealing with individuals who would not acknowledge his ideas without putting up a verbal fight. When John spoke with Jane, he had the same fighter attitude and tone, he was still disturbed with memories. Jane concluded that John did not like her. Jane resented John and did not want to speak with him. John had a movie in his head playing. He was unable to disengage as another experience in the now arrived. Jane had a conclusion by analysis of the perceived facts. If there is a fight between them, both will defend their own positions; solidifying their egos and separation. Made up reasons to demonstrate how ‘I am right’ will affect that relationship.”
The disciple replied: “Master, but how do I disengage from that movie in my head? How not to make conclusions when it seems obvious?” The master stayed in silence for a few seconds and said: “Become aware of the movie playing in your head. Observe that any conclusion will close the possibility to perceive further realities. Allow room for unexpected things to be. With a conclusion you will act in a predetermined way. You may regret that. Many individuals entertain their minds through movies at this time. A movie will take them to a fantasy world. They may feel a rush inside, their emotions make them feel alive out of the boredom of repetition of every day life. However, they do not observe the movie playing in their own heads constantly.”
The disciple realized about his own day dreaming and content mixed with inner chattering and asked:”But without a movie, what should be there instead?”
The master said: “Nothing. The mind does not need to play a movie while you are driving or cooking or eating or bathing. That will happen as you become conscious of the mind playing an artificial movie in your head. Feel the real movie of Life instead, place your awareness into the activities of the present instead. While doing things in Life, do as you wish but be AWARE of it!”
Empty the room to be full again
A room full of things is like a person full of “I.”
Those things, boxes, plastic bags, etc. get accumulated through time.
Not every thing in the room has the same value for that “I.”
Some things have greater priority. According to that, a personality will be built.
The “I” is trying to keep everything under its 4 walls. Failing to see that those things that make up a full room now, got there not by the powers of the “I” but by coincidences, “random events,” situations, circumstances, which are the settings beyond the 4 walls of the room.
Those things got into the room through “others.” To see this is to understand inter-beingness.
Every box in the room has collaborated to make a person known as “me.”
Who made it?
Life itself.
Most think that the “I” will make himself through “choices,” but the choices that arrive are not dependent on that “I.”
Your “choice” is either red or blue. A person who does not know about yellow, green, magenta, etc. will believe of making a “choice” out of only 2 colors appearing in his Life, red or blue.
“I picked my husband.” Meaning, your choice was red or blue. Those are the colors that appeared in your experience of Life. To say “I picked” is not completely true. Your choices were limited. Your timing did not depend on the “I.”
“That blue box over there, is something which I like a lot. I will not allow it to go.”
However, it will go away. It is just a matter of time.
While the box is being moved out of the room, there will be drama, struggle, fight, animosity, fear, anger, etc. After all the “blue box” is going away!
After awhile, the “blue box” is no longer there, but in that empty space now, there is an emotion holding the phantom of the loss of the “blue box.”
Even though Life is cleaning the space of that full room for newness to appear, the “I” is struggling to keep things static “forever.” 🙂
The “I” may hear many talks about how “good” is to be detached from all of those boxes but once Life takes away another box from that room, the “I” will cry in despair.
The box is gone! …But an emotion takes its place.
As the room becomes empty of things, it does not matter how religious or how saintly someone may believe to be. The room may be empty of things, as many saints may claim: “ I do not have anything. I am not attached to no one.” However, the ghosts of emotions are taking the place of those objects.
That room is not empty yet. It is full of ghosts. Self-deception is one of them.
As Life removes things from the room, we may replace those objects with different ones; we may decorate that room with newness, with creativity… but we don’t.
We cling to the old stuff.
That is how to flush the emotions is truly necessary in the process of becoming a new person in Life.
Emotions are like the odor left by the previous tenants of an apartment. That odor will spread through all new objects in the room.
To be born again is to be empty, completely healed. Ready for newness.
“All that you are is the result of all that you have thought,” I hear.
That is not true. All that you are depends on the identification with the elements coming into that empty room.
Identifying with one, surely creates a “recurrent energy,” a recurrent thought.
“But… where do you read this? Who gives you this knowledge?”
Life itself. We are not separated from it.
Identification of the “self.”
The static “self” looks for identity. Our identification goes along with our consciousness.
I could be taught: “You are a soul, eternal Atman,” If I believe that, and if my consciousness is identified with the way my body looks, the automatic reaction for an individual experiencing duality in the mind, is to reject the body and to embrace the new “idea” of self.
Rejection or fighting against anything as a method to overcome something is completely irrational.
That is how the word “spirituality” came into being. It is about the “spirit,” the “soul,” “who we truly are.”
When our awareness allows us to see something else, we could observe that the duality between the body and the spirit has been created out of a concept, an idea; thus we will reject something about “us.”
Living life with joy, the “now” becomes “spirituality” to another type of consciousness.
It doesn’t matter if we know the concepts, the ideas about “who we are,” for that “knowing” is all about the dualistic mind.
When we abandon the mind and start living with the heart, labels and ideas are no longer needed.
Those beliefs become an obstacle to experience life to the fullest. The mystery of “who we are” will be answered when we realize “who we are not.” 🙂
Life is harmony. To live life to the fullest we may need to be aware of that harmonic, rhythmical movement. Without that awareness we become rigid. Fixated in something. Death.
I recall the words of my friend Mathias about harmony and rhythm in life.
“Rhythm in life is already there. Human beings continue, in a hardheaded way; to try to accommodate life to what they believe is their life.
When you develop your intuition then you begin to understand that “to observe” is more than what we are able to see… then you start discovering that the internal weeping comes from the stubbornness of trying to be someone who is no longer you.
When that sense of rhythm is lacking, then we embrace extremes in our life.”
If we are unable to live life to the fullest “now” like a child, how is it possible to pretend to live to the fullest “in the future”?
How concepts and labels such as “atman,” “predestination,” “karma” and all of that are able to help us when we have not been able to realize by our own observation how Nature, Life works and rather rely on the hand –me -down ideas of someone else?
It does not matter how enlightened those ideas are, or how much we quote them or repeat them. If we have not experienced those, we will have our mind full of ideas and our hearts empty of fulfillment.
To know means, to live life in that harmonious symphony.
When we listen to a song, we don’t think about it. We don’t dissect it in different parts and analyze it to discover the exact timing of the instruments to try to discover why a song is “likable.”
When we truly listen to the song, we enjoy it. That enjoyment is a feeling where the mind has no place.
Life is like that song.
Feel the song. 🙂
[http://youtu.be/MTJSL9WCAQA]
Exploring the Depth of Living 