Taking a step into the world of our Being

[Edwin]

I too enjoy the conversation. It helps me clear things for myself as well !

It is said that “thoughts create reality” and yet we are not our thoughts. Many people may mistaken from this phrase that we are our thoughts, but mediation and a shift in awareness will allow us to quietly observe our ego mind without judgment, just as you mentioned!

Rene Descartes once said the famous phrase "I think, therefor I am".
But in a way it is the other way around: I Am, therefor I think.
Thought is never wrong ( how could it be ), intelligence is one of the greatest gifts to mankind. We only need to realise that Being puts the mind to work, and when the mind is finished with the task it is ordered, it needs to "shut down" again. The shift in awareness we are talking about makes you the one who controls thought, not thought that controls you.

Do you guys think people are afraid to face their “inner selves”? A person from another forum stated that some people are terrified of meditaiton and reflection of the Being. Why do people tend to focus outward more? Is it simply easier and more comfortable? Or are they just trying to escape dealing with the complex Being?

When you say "Some people" in a way you are saying "Some person". What is a person ?
Is your Being, your Self a person ?
A "person" is simply another word for "ego".

So, yes, most ego's are terrified to notice Being. The ego will disappear when you become aware of the fact that it doesn't really exist. In Buddhism this moment is called "Death before you die" and with good reason. The ego "dies" and all that is left is the everpresent Being. The ego doesn't want to "die" and makes you feel fear and unease just thinking about it. Keep searching

If the body already houses the mind, why is it then necessary that they meet together? Can the body connect with the mind at all times, or does it have to search for the mind?

The body/mind is like a computer/operating system combo. Completely useless without the operator ( Being or True Self ). A computer/OS ( Body/mind ) doesn't do anything by itself. Even tho the operator isn't a part of it, they need each other to get results. The Self feeds mind with orders, mind executes them. The place where they meet could be the computerscreen/keyboard-mouse in my analogy. The interface so to speak.

There are no real seperate parts. You are your mind/body/Self combo. There is just a mixup about who is in charge. After you clear that issue, there is only peace.

[angelaIBSH]

Heyy!

Rene Descartes once said the famous phrase "I think, therefor I am".
But in a way it is the other way around: I Am, therefor I think.

First off, such an insightful idea you have there! I think that it, indeed, can be said from both angles. The first one is like “thoughts creating reality,” where our inner Being dominates the physical domain. But, it is because I AM, because I am the Being and because I, like the moderator that you mentioned, have the ability to control the ego mind. Therefore, we shouldn’t overreact to our thoughts!

The body/mind is like a computer/operating system combo. Completely useless without the operator ( Being or True Self ). A computer/OS ( Body/mind ) doesn't do anything by itself. Even tho the operator isn't a part of it, they need each other to get results. The Self feeds mind with orders, mind executes them. The place where they meet could be the computerscreen/keyboard-mouse in my analogy. The interface so to speak.

Great analogy! It really cleared up some of some of these complex concepts! The mind, body and Being does work together! They co-exist and one will never be able to get rid of the others. It all depends on how we control them and balance out the “power” of each.

I suddenly thought of a question that I’ve wanted to ask for a long time! Sometimes we find ourselves daydreaming or just “blanking out” all of a sudden. it feels like you have shifted between two worlds. It is that sudden “click” that awakes you and destroys all those sweet thoughts. What is happening to the mind and the Being in such intervals? Is the ego mind releasing itself, or is it simply a transcending of boundaries?

[Edwin]

Originally Posted by angelaIBSH

I suddenly thought of a question that I’ve wanted to ask for a long time! Sometimes we find ourselves daydreaming or just “blanking out” all of a sudden. it feels like you have shifted between two worlds. It is that sudden “click” that awakes you and destroys all those sweet thoughts. What is happening to the mind and the Being in such intervals? Is the ego mind releasing itself, or is it simply a transcending of boundaries?

Ah, you got me there !
I have been thinking about this one too. Hadn't really come to a conclusion about it yet. Allow me to "think out loud" here for a moment.

Like yourself, I really enjoy these moments of "blanking out" like you said, getting envolved in a peacefull daydream.
However, is this daydream ego ?
Am I unwantedly feeding the ego by doing this ?
The feelings during these pleasant daydreams are similar to those during meditation. Maybe it is caused by the sitting still, who knows.

I guess enlightenment is not just about not-thinking, it is about no unnessacary thinking. When you "wake up" from the daydream, thoughts stop, like you mentioned. With me at least, the pleasant feeling lasts, even tho the thought stops. In the end, I think maybe it is about allowing yourself to drift away into unconsiousness in the knowledge that when you snap out of it, thoughts should go away and stay away. Maybe it is best to allow only 90% of yourself to daydream, and stay aware of the daydream for only 10%, like a anti-virus program running in the background.

You allow your thoughts some freedom, like you would take away the leash of a dog to let it play for free for some time. You only allow your dog this freedom knowing that when you call him back to the leash he will obey !.
As long as a person is not free from egoic mind, letting it run free will cause trouble in my opinion.

Interesting to see how an answer will slowly form

oh btw:

What is happening to the mind and the Being in such intervals?

Being just Is. It is here, now. Nothing in the world that you think, do, or is done to you in the physical world, can change Being.
Doing something to no-thing just creates something within nothing. Take away something, and all that remains is no-thing.

All you can damage is ego. ego can damage your physical body, so take away ego, and you are pure Being. Always, no matter what in the world has hurt you in the past. This pureness, this unchangeble wholeness is allready at the base of You. You allready are that. Ego is just telling you otherwise. I just think it is a comforting thought for you to know that you can't really be hurt.

[angelaIBSH]

You allow your thoughts some freedom, like you would take away the leash of a dog to let it play for free for some time. You only allow your dog this freedom knowing that when you call him back to the leash he will obey !.

Therefore, is it that when we daydream or when we blank out, we are giving our ego mind space to release its thoughts, but when we suddenly “awake” from that “blank” state, we are re-garthering our thoughts and once again taking control of it? I like that analogy! Sometimes, we can allow our thoughts to flow freely, but later we can “call it back to the leash” and it will quiet down. When we first start meditating, we experience a state of “nothingness” or “emptiness”…perhaps this is when our Being is regathering all of our thoughts and which eventually allows our Being to live in its purest form, as you mentioned!
What I am saying may be a little simplified, but this is the general concept! (correct me if I’m wrong!)

All you can damage is ego. ego can damage your physical body, so take away ego, and you are pure Being. This pureness, this unchangeble wholeness is allready at the base of You. You allready are that. Ego is just telling you otherwise. I just think it is a comforting thought for you to know that you can't really be hurt.

I agree with what you say! Our ego mind is not completely evil. It does not exist only create unnecessary thoughts. But, on the other hand, it is also what sometimes inhibits us from experiencing essence with the Being. As you have previously mentioned, we should not overreact to such thoughts because they are simply thoughts – thoughts that we can control! It is, indeed comforting to know that we can’t really be hurt. Perhaps it just depends on how we deal with things, and the charge (as we discussed in the most recent discussion) that we distribute among the Being and ego mind.

[Edwin]

but when we suddenly “awake” from that “blank” state, we are re-garthering our thoughts and once again taking control of it?

taking control might not be the best way to describe it. Maybe I am splitting hairs, but...

What control do we have over our thoughts ?
Do we actively think our thoughts, or do the thoughts come up out of nothing ?

Does our mind form thoughts ? Or do we watch them come up ?
The "leash" from my analogy might have given you this idea. But thought and self-image are not who you really are.

perhaps this is when our Being is regathering all of our thoughts and which eventually allows our Being to live in its purest form, as you mentioned!

Perhaps, in the beginning. When you just start meditation the connection with ego is so strong, that you can't imagine not being it.
At this stage, a person can still get depressed, and needs a therapist to get out of that.
As soon as the realisation comes that all thought is a re-action to life instead of action, and that ego doesn't exist, depression can't come anymore.
Depressed ? Who is depressed ? Me ? Ego ? Being ?

[islovin]

Edwin,

So am I to understand that eventually with continued meditation I will no longer feel depressed?

And the reason for this is that the more I practice just watching my thoughts go by, the better I will get at not dwelling on them.

Are you saying that what I am actually doing is training myself to not dwell on my thoughts. If I don't dwell on my thoughts then I will be better at just letting things be. Especially, if the things I am thinking about or dwelling on are things that I have no control over and possibly because I have no control over these things....that is the reason why my thoughts depress me?


Irene




I have only been meditating daily since September. I have only been using LifeFlow since March.

[Edwin]

Hi Irene

Think of it this way:

What is depression ?
You feel depressed. What is the cause of these feelings ?

Usually things like a negative self-image, constant recurring thoughts, stories made up by the mind that can only be temporary. The mind is extremely unstabile. There is a constant fear of the mind that you will see the truth about thought, so it advertises it's own "truth" constantly, and quite loudly.
When you believe the advertisements as truth, the negative thoughts that are meant to feed and strengthen the mind's position, the body will react to it.
A nice way to illustrate the unstabile nature of the mind are stories like this one:

You have been having a bad day. When walking to the bathroom you hit your toe. When squeezing the tube the toothpaste came out the back end of the tube, on that nice shirt you were planning to wear to work today.
The car wouldn't start right away, so you had to hurry to work, and almost hit another car.

By now, the mind will have made a story. "This day is a complete disaster", "I should have stayed in bed".

When you arrived at work, your boss calls you to his office. You arrived 5 minutes late, so in your mind there is allready a big fight raging about you "being only 5 minutes late, and what is the big problem anyway, I always work late, what kind of a boss are you anyway".
You come in, and the boss smiles at you.

"Irene, I have decided that your work here is so wonderfull, that you will get a raise."

Wow, suddenly this day can't possibly go wrong anymore.
You walk around on top of the world, the mind feeds you with memories of the talk with your boss, your colleagues seem extra friendly today, everything is wonderfull !!

and then you spill your entire cup of coffee on your dress.

The stories behind the events keep going and going. The events in itself mean relatively little. So, you hit your toe. The pain passes after a few seconds, and after that, it is history. If you were to focus on the Now only, after the pain has subsided, the event of hitting your toe doesn't exist anymore. Right after hitting your toe even, the moment of hitting your toe is gone, and all there is is pain in your toe, the actual hitting it is allready a story fed into your mind "I have pain in my toe because I hit it". But the hitting has allready passed.
Without the story, small events like the toothpaste incident in the physical world mean only 2 things: You need a new tube of toothpaste and you need to wash your shirt.
The feelings behind it, anger, annoyance, come up and that is fine. They come up and there is nothing you can do about that. They pass after just a few seconds, like all feelings do. Unless you remember them, linger on them, confirm the story in your mind to be true.

Now it is quite easy to see the lies in the negative events.
But how about the promotion ?

The stories that your mind makes up about how wonderfull your life is, are they true ? Do you feel happiness ? Or joy ? What is left of these feelings when you spill your coffee on your dress ?

THE THOUGHTS HAPPEN AFTERWORDS ! So they can only be lies, as the event they react to has allready passed.

When you take a sip from your coffee and it is too cold, you, your Being will register this right away. The fact is inescapable.
Only after your Being registered it, will mind tell you "This coffee is too cold".
Well DUH !
Tell me something I don't know !

Being knows. It experiences, constantly. Knowing without having to think about it.

When mind stops making stories, the negative and positive feelings caused by it will stop.
Sounds scary huh ? Your mind will now probably think "But does that mean that the world will become tasteless, no good, no bad ? Isn't that boring, won't we become emotionless, indifferent to what happens ?"
This is because mind tries to make a concept out of something that can never be understood with the mind.
I can only try to tell you what it is like, but it can only be experienced. You feel Love, Unity, like coming Home and staying there. The shallow emotions still pop up, joy, anger, annoyance.. They only stay for a few seconds, and then they are gone. You are able to be completely calm only 2 minutes after having felt complete rage about a situation. Because that rage is in the past. The Now is constantly changing.

Freedom from stories completely changes your world ! You welcome both the positive and the negative as part of You, because you know that You experience it. Everything you see, hear, smell, feel, think, is caused by You.
Without You, there is no experience.

This freedom is usually named "enlightenment". The ego, the storyteller is gone. Everything you do in the physical world happens by itself, as it does right now allready, the storyteller just claims copyright to actions that happen by itself:

"I made a wonderfull poem today".
Did you really ? How ?
"Well I sat down, and waited for the words to come up."
Hm, doesn't sound like something you did.
"But I reasoned about the words"
With who ? And when you were unsatisfied with a word or sentence, what did you do to change it ?
"Well, I thought "that isn't right" and waited for a better sentence to come up".
Hm, I don't see why your ego is so proud of itself, it did absolutely nothing to create that poem.

Another good example for male readers: " I am an excellent driver ".
If you don't understand the meaning of this one, we can do a similar discussion

When ego is gone, depression is gone as well. Depression is caused by stories.

"But what about the chemical unbalance that the psychotherapist talks about, he sais I need anti-depressants ?"
Only in rare cases is the body directly responsible for depression.
Usually the chemical unbalance is created by negative thought and stories, that affect the body by making glands work less effective.
Not just those that produce hormones, but also for example the glands that produce the protective layer inside your stomach, so that the agressive stomach fluids reach your actual stomach's skin and create an ulcer.

I am not saying that nobody needs anti-depressants. They can be effective in bringing the vicious circle to a halt. But they aren't a cure for depression, they are a cure for the physical reaction to thought. They don't cure the cause, they cure the reaction. But especially people who are totally unaware of what ego is, who firmly believe the stories told by thought about themselves, those people need to get more positive, that is, make a less negative self-image, and anti-depressants can be of huge help to create that.
But, that person is still troubled by the ego, it just is a slightly more positive ego.

A very long answer, but the conclusion is: Yes, with enlightenment, depression will disappear alongside with the ego.

[Edwin]

If you wish to know more about all that has been discussed here, check out this website:

Amigo, unconditional friendship

[sliccy]

Can I have your autograph, Edwin?

[Edwin]

LOL !!!

Good one, maybe I should start giving Satsangs, dress in white robes and have a whole number of devotees that look at me in awe all the time as I continue my job as a locksmith :P

Maybe write a book "The enlightened Locksmith"



The realisation that I wrote about starts really easy actually.

It all comes down to the question that has plagued mankind ever since awareness entered our body:

"Who am I ?"

All you have to do, is follow the question inside.
With everything you think, feel, do, experience, ask yourself this question, preferrably all through the day:
Who is it that is experiencing this ? Who is thinking this ? For who am I thinking this ?

For me, fear used to be the biggest obstacle on my path, or so I thought.
But just like Byron Katie likes to turn things around, so did I.
I was constantly afraid of going bankrupt. A very strong fear. Nauseating.

Then, I realised that there had to be someone inside me that was experiencing this fear. Who is feeling this fear ?
As I started searching inside for the "me" that felt fear, I was shocked to discover that there was no "me". What is the color, shape, size or weight of me ?

In fact, try it now for yourself. ( Read this first "Who am I ?" Meditation this sunday )

Fear is just one of the roads inwards. Any strong feeling or thought that you are experiencing now, is good for this. It doesn't have to be a strong one even, but the stronger the emotion, the wider the road inwards.
Take some time apart for a moment ( or do it during your meditation ) and as soon as you notice that you are thinking, simply ask yourself the question: Who is thinking this ?

Don't judge the thought. You don't have to. It is just a thought that comes up. As it comes up, you either go with it, or observe it. Asking yourself "for who am I thinking this ? " will lead you away from the constant chatter in your mind, the judging of your thoughts.
Feel free to change the question to the occasion. It is not a mantra: WhoamI,WhoamI,WhoamI,WhoamI...

Ask the question, and listen, look, observe, wait for an answer to pop up.
If an answer pops up, ask it the same question. You see, your mind needs to realise that it can't answer this question. The mind, which is located in your left brain hemispere, is linear. Something either exists, or it doesn't. If it exists, it has to have size, form, shape.
Mind even tries to trick itself into making a concept out of things it can't explain.

An example: I have a hole in my sock.

What is a hole ?

What is the weight, size, shape of the hole ? What is it's colour ?
At best, a hole can be described as "Nothing with something around it". It is a concept so that your mind can lable it, file it. A broken sock, filed under the H for hole.

How about this second example: Space

Lovely name. What is space ? What is the size, shape, colour, weight ? The image you see in your mind of space, is it accurate ? Who is observing that image ?

Example nr. 3 :

" I ", also known as "me", "Myself", or in Tolle's words "ego".

See where I am going ?

If you keep asking the question, in the end there will be no answer possible anymore. All concepts about yourself.. you have proven to yourself that it was just concepts. All the things you thought about yourself were just concepts. Just like the "hole" or "space".

If I were to say to you:
"from your answer I can see that you are a really dishonest person"

You would feel attacked. Why ?
Because your mind tells you otherwise. "I am in fact a really honest person, just the other day I told the shopkeeper that the change wasn't right, bla bla bla"

But that thought, that you are a really honest person... Is that who you are ?
Are you constantly that honest person ? Doing honesty all the time ? Is that always on your mind ? How about when you are working, or sleeping, are you still constantly being honest ? You don't have to. Because you are also not being dishonest all the time. You just "are" all the time. Be-ing.
Honest, dishonest, they are just concepts. That is all. You don't have to judge the concepts. Just ask yourself the question: Who is thinking this concept ? For who am I thinking this ? for me. Who am I ?

Hopefully you will try this.
Realising that you are not your thoughts is the last step. When you know this, you will shift your attention subtilly towards the one thing that you can't see. The see-er itself. Just like a knive can cut everything except itself, a camera can't make a picture of itself, an eye can see everything except itself, the essence of you, the soul if you will, can't see itself. It can only observe everyting that happens around it. It is the only thing that can't be discarded of, because you exist ! How can you not exist ?
That is the real You. It is shapeless. Weightless. Colourless. Timeless. It has always existed, and always will. It is the only mistery that even the highest enlightened being can't describe or understand.

And the only time that it can see, experience, is Now.
When else ? Can you experience things yesterday ? Tomorrow ? One minute from now ? These are also concepts ! They do not exist !

Of course they are usefull in the everyday world. How else would I know that tomorrow night, I have an appointment with the hairdresser.
But why would that have to bother me Now ?

It is surprisingly easy. Doing this excercise is all it takes.
When you have realised this, really felt it, not just intellectually like when you are reading this, but when you have experienced it yourself...
That is the last action, the last step you can take. The search is over, you have found your Self.

Now stay there.

I have no idea why Tolle had to write 2 books about this, it really is just this. That is all. I am That.