Tagged: surrender
What is the mind and no-mind?
When we become aware of our inner state, we start understanding “what makes it tick.” If we want to communicate those findings to another, then a particular language is invented to describe the experiences.
Those listening or reading the explanations but without the experience, will be caught up with just the words.
For instance, if a religion talks about “being soul conscious,” immediately there is a misunderstanding from those without the experience. Then, those individuals want to “achieve soul consciousness,” they want to “work on it,” etc. That only shows their conditioning.
If Ahnanda mentions “No-I,” it is the same as the Buddhist “emptiness,” and the same as “soul conscious.”
Readers caught up with words but unable to look at their inner experience, will try to intellectually understand what “no-I” is.
You cannot. For “I” am denying that which you think you are.
Thus, another word that may convey a similar experience is “no-mind.”
However, the question now becomes: “What is the mind?”
Here some “definitions:”
1) The mind is a set of cognitive faculties including consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory.
2) The element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.
3) In common parlance, ‘the mind’ most often refers to the seat of human consciousness, the thinking-feeling ‘I’ that seems to be an agentic causal force that is somehow related but is also seemingly separable from the body.
Those definitions are only pointers to know that we are talking about a “table” and not an “apple.” Unless you look at your own table, you will not know ‘table.’
Your emotions, your conditioning, your traumas, your expectations, your taboos, your beliefs all of that is the mind.
All of that will give you a unique identity which is different than anyone else.
Therefore, unlearning, healing, dissolving, surrendering that mind… all of those “spiritual key words,” mean the same thing, or rather: It “is pointing to the same experience.”
When we use the mind, we are caught up with dictionary definitions, concepts, methods, analysis. We wish to understand our mind by using those things. That will not happen.
As the mind surrenders, there is “no-mind.” As there is openness, there is integration with all that is.
Call that soul consciousness, call that emptiness, call that no-mind, no-I, call that oneness, call that God…
Labels and more labels.
Some readers love a particular label used by a Spiritual Guru. If another uses a different label, then that becomes “false” for them. The mind entertains in those debates, meaningless “theory.”
You will know that the mind is going away, when enjoyment of Life arrives, you become relax, you will “go with the flow”… until then, relentless pursue your dreams, stress yourself out, strive to make “a difference,” be “number 1,” experience the accomplishments taking you nowhere, experience the “hamster wheel” of the mind…
Once the mind is tired, frustrated, it gives up… then you can finally sit down and observe… You will understand without trying to. 🙂
The “office world” does not teach that.
Question: Depression and Sexual fantasies
Dear Ahnanda
Please share your experience about depression and sexual fantasy. If someone is suffering with depression from long period what is life teaching to that person also if anyone is addicted to sexual fantasy how does it affects other beings and what is the solution to transform this energy for the common good.
Thank you very much
Regards
Thank you for your question. I will share from my experience.
In a nutshell, if a chemical imbalance then, medicine will help.
If an attitude due to feeling unfulfilled in Life, then to find a goal in Life may help, through a religion, an ideal or a group. If due to the influence of the environment including spirits, then it may be a necessary experience to go through in order to change. There are some people trained on those arts (spiritists/shamans) who may be able to help. Once the spirit is gone, depression will be gone as well.
As in the teaching of “polarity,” depression is one extreme of the experience. Elation/sexuality is the other. For some, to experience Life is to go through those experiences.
Let us say that someone is practicing Celibacy. The experience of sadness and even depression will help to maintain that practice of Celibacy, for the natural sexual urge (elation) will not be there. Thus, we could say that sadness and depression had a “reason” to be there.
Remember that every experience in Life has meaning. Once we go through the extremes, we may need to transcend that duality by integrating them in Life.
Therefore, if you know someone who is experiencing depression, become aware that this experience as “terrible” as it may seem, is necessary in the Life experience of that person despite the outcome. Also, it is influencing the Life experiences of those around a depressed person.
The other extreme of that experience of depression is the experience of sex in different forms. Someone who has been suffering to the extreme, will experience utmost pleasure and that is typically related with sexual pleasure.
Sexual fantasies are the outcome of an obsessive mind, trapped in the way it directs its focus.
That mind is suffering; then sexuality is that release into the other extreme until it becomes addictive.
Pornography is a type of sexual fantasy. Because men are typically more visual, that is the way the mind will be engaged into sex. “Sex is in the mind,” as preached by our mind addicted society. Similarly women may engage in sexual fantasy as that is the acceptable “outlet.” No one knows what is in your mind, except you.
It is interesting that you have asked a question which deals with 2 extremes of the same issue.
What is the issue?
The mind.
A boyfriend left Janet. She was in love with him. She was in pain. She looked for a close male friend for support. She had sex with him.
What was the issue? Her ego mind couldn’t take the pain.
Sex was used as the painkiller. The obvious “reason” could be “sugar coated” and Janet could explain her experience as “feeling a special bond” at that time with her friend.
In Sexual fantasies, the mind is obsessive with the sensation that sexuality brings to calm our inner suffering. We may not even be aware of it. It is a way of compensation.
Until we become aware of how our mind is taking us to fantasies as a way to escape from some sort of suffering, (which could be lack of sexual satisfaction among other things) then we can only DO things to try to mitigate what makes us feel “bad” about ourselves.
For example, we could join a group who labels sex as “bad.” Then our support group will be within the same extremist belief of our mind. We will feel good for some time… but then, the mind will change into the other extreme.
If we reject our fantasies, then we will make them stronger. The inner fight will only make us tired, without energy.
If we believe that our thoughts are “sinful,” then we will feel guilty.
If we believe that God disapproves of such sexual thoughts, we will feel in shame.
Observe how beliefs are affecting our Life. Sex is not shameful or “bad,” it is just that an out of control mind, will hurt itself through an addiction. The problem is not a sexual fantasy but the obsessive mind.
Others around may be able to feel the “vibes” of an overcharged but repressed sexual energy.
Perhaps some would like me to tell what to DO, right?
Do not repress sexuality.
We may learn that surrendering to pleasure is not a “bad” thing. The “bad” thing is to repress pleasure because our mind and hang ups, beliefs and traditions have taught us “not to lose control.” Sex without mind and thoughts, is a teacher of “No-I.” Sex with mind/fantasies/thoughts is the teacher of lack of satisfaction. Sexual pleasure is not of the mind.
There is more to sex that most people know about. But, we cannot transcend something that deep inside is suppressed and rejected.
Is the above “sinful” for some?
Then guilt, shame and a continuous fight with sexual fantasies will be there for us.
Anything we DO such praying, becoming busy, etc. will only be a distraction for some time until… the sequence repeats again… But stronger, lively… It is not a question of DOING something, but a question of observing and becoming aware of an obsessive mind.
We are not our minds. We could hear it speaking to us, but we do not need to listen… Moreover, it is an “illusion” if I call that mind “Me.”
The art of surrendering
Many may ask: What is that state of “no-I” that you talk about? How do you become egoless?
Many want an explanation and a method to practice.
Few will realize after all these articles shared here, that before being egoless, we need to experience the utmost ego that we are capable of experiencing.
That is the principle of polarity in action. Your Ego has to be mature, ready to die. Without that requisite there is no surrender.
In other words, until you have not reached the point of saturation of ego in your Life, to be ego-less is out of the question.
As a matter of fact, any method that we may practice in the meantime, is meant to increase the size of the ego.
For instance, if you join a religion as a method to become free from ego, that in itself is building your ego. That is not “bad” at all. By being in that religion we may feel to be “special,” a “chosen one,” that is enhancing our previous ego. That is wonderful! 🙂
Many do not realize what is actually happening until the polarity changes.
When the ego has inflated itself to the utmost, it will explode like a balloon, then through that explosion; the ego will dissolve little by little. That is a process as well.
That process of inflating the ego, is painful. It brings suffering to our ego, until we give up.
That giving up, giving into something new is the meaning of surrendering.
What do you give up?
Yourself. That ego which believes to be you.
That surrendering could be to a Guru, a God, a loved one, etc. What is important is the process of surrendering not to who you surrender to. It is through that surrendering how something new, a new Life could be experienced.
Our ego will delay that experience of fully surrendering until the ego is fat enough to explode. Therefore, only those who have reached the pinnacle of suffering due to their ego are the only ones who could be ready to surrender and become empty of themselves.
For the rest, any path they may take, whether a Godly or a Devilish path… all of those paths are just methods to increase the size of their own egos.
That is why, there is not a “bad” path.
When you surrender, someone else takes control of your Life. You are not in charge anymore. It is through that experience how someone else, can appear in you instead of the same old ego.
To surrender the ego is an act of love, manifested through the death of that one who was there before.
That is how Love comes out of Death, just to manifest in Life. Life and Death are together.
Without the experience of having surrendered completely to become one with someone, there cannot be love between humans, for there will be only 2 fighting egos trying to possess or to boss around the other.
Eventually it becomes the relationship of the master and the slave. There is a dependency between both roles, there is a hierarchy.
The possibilities in a relationship with someone are as follows:
One ego plus another ego equals the duality of love and hate. That is the typical relationship nowadays. It is about having “security” and that kills love.
One ego plus a surrendered individual means the possibility for 2 to be one.
However, the remaining ego will give the tune to the relationship. This is the model of relationship of the 1800’s when the woman surrendered to her husband.
The surrendered person will lose her ego, her previous Life. The one who did not, will be reflected through her. Lesser ego means to be closer to a “0” a “nothing” so, 0+0 will be nothing, “0.”
That is love. That is freedom. That is death.
Love is no longer a duality, but something to be discovered at every second.
To surrender or to bow down?
In “Spirituality” the words that we use to define certain experiences are not the experience in itself but merely a pointer to give us an idea.
I am quoting “spirituality” because that is the word which most will understand. It is a word with a “high level of acceptance” perceived as “higher than mundane.”
Nevertheless, inside my heart what I truly mean is “living life.”
Living life may sound as ordinary, something that everyone does like eating or sleeping; but to perceive the extraordinary into something ordinary is truly a different consciousness, which is not bound by terminology or concepts.
“Spirituality” is not isolated from living life.
Mathias, the wise tree said to Ananda: “ There is a difference between to bow down and to surrender.
To bow down to life means to say “Wow” to be in awe in front of something. To surrender has the flavor of giving up, to resign, to give control to someone else… sorrow.”
In “normal” Spirituality, the word “surrendering” is used.
Surrender your ego. Surrender your life. Surrender this or that… It is still the “I” in submission as if kneeling down in front of something, which is more powerful. There is separation of “I” and the other thing.
That type of attitude is the beginning of low self-esteem.
In the hierarchy of religions, a higher priest may request to a lower rank monk to surrender his ego to him.
For most that could be accomplished by belittling someone in different ways.
That is called abusive behavior and it has nothing to do with transforming “someone.”
There is no one who can transform anyone else. “True” transformation comes from inner realization.
To bow down to life is an inner gesture of acknowledgment to change. There is nothing to give up, nothing to lose, nothing to be sad about.
A palm tree bows down to the winds of a hurricane. It is that flexibility what allows the tree to survive and to find out a new skill.
“Wow… such is the wind!”
“Wow…such is death!”
The gesture of letting something go ahead, that permission does not come from losing a “battle.”
To surrender means to prostrate internally, to submit, to succumb to something, which is viewed as higher, “better than thou.”
It is that understanding which has started devotion, the guilt factor, a rebellious attitude or fear to be no more.
When we bow down to life, that gesture becomes our sign of trust, for life will provide exactly what is needed by every one of us in order to discover ourselves.
That may be “spirituality.” Thus, anything that life brings as an experience; is there for a particular length of time before going away…. If the lesson has been learned.
Bowing down to life is to be “obedient.”
To surrender is to repeat that lesson until learned.
Exploring the Depth of Living 