Time is merely another chair to sit and enjoy Life

I am paraphrasing the words my friend “Mathias” said.

The nature of the mind is to move from a tree branch into another like a monkey, according to the “number 1” desire of the moment onto the next ordinal one. The mind has things to do, to accomplish to comply with its conditioning.

From my vantage point, my mind has been conditioned to pursue money, wealth at all costs. “Time is money” is a trite saying most everyone knows about. Once we acquire wealth, we may feel “successful,” that is “we have arrived.” That is the fruit of a “busy,” “hard-working” Life. Everything else, is a secondary branch to cling on: Emotional, mental, physical well being, all secondary. Even those who are “retired” from the “rat race,” may indulge into “busy-ness.” There is always something to do around the house. Some entertainment to keep us going until we can no longer do that. In fact, “DOING” is the greatest mental disease in our day and age. “But how is it that DOING which is an action becomes a mental disease? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Once we “stop and take the time to smell the roses,” we could find the answer. Otherwise we will not. How can we explain to a fish what being wet means?

What I just mentioned is the ontological origin of religion, spirituality and the misunderstanding brought by them into humanity.

Time is not money. Time is only a chair where we can sit down and enjoy Life. Time doesn’t exist in “reality,” but in the game of having a body/mind and fully identifying with it (what is known as “I”) then, we perceive time as some commodity that is running out of our hands and that we need to fill with meaningful activity before the “end.”

While sitting in “meditation” (“Me” time, “Me”-dication) or contemplation and merely observing the trees in a rainy morning, a cat suddenly comes out, moving slowly as if “busy” wasn’t part of its “meow-bulary” (vocabulary.) Shook its body to dispel some of the water and sat near me. At that moment, I caught my mind saying: “cool cat” moreover, there was an automatic feeling of liking the cat. Apparently, there is nothing to it, but when we are observing, being the witness of anything, there is meaning.

My mind hijacked my attention through words and introduced a feeling/emotion. It is instantaneous. That feeling brought me to the next “space time” of feeling good because my mind did not dislike the cat. However, beyond the “liking and disliking” there is the feeling setting the note up for the next second and my mind was the hijacker, doing its thing through its rampant conditioning. The minute we can separate from the mind, we have truly made some progress. Why? Because now there is some “cushion” before acting. If there is no separation between “me” and the mind, then action happens automatically out of the conditioned thought and feeling. Unless I can catch it, that action builds up my unobserved conditioning.

The caveat is that “catching it” cannot be done a minute after the experience, but it has to be done while it happens. That is what we can call being “awake.”

“But If I do not identify with the mind, then with who or what do I identify with?” That “center” that “core” cannot be explained. But only to say that this experience may appear once we observe the mind in an unrelenting way. That observation is truly our “reality.”

After all, philosophers have debated for many centuries about the nature of “reality,” and found out nothing… however, our own perception is “real” for us. Thus, the way out from the outside is the inside. We are introducing a different kind of conditioning, which does not come from the outside.

This we can call freedom.

Most of us are used to, conditioned to use the mind at all times, thus we fully identify with it. The whole process of de-identification and using the heart or “chest”(according to C.S Lewis) to perceive Life and use the mind in harmony with the “heart” and in tune with the “gut” center is what I can call now, “self-knowledge.” It is a balance of all main centers and it is from that vantage point, where a new society could emerge. After all, Albert Einstein mentioned: “You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.”

Minds are good for creating problems. No-mind resolves them.

Your role in Life and BEING

When someone suffers in Life and looks for a “solution,” he is told in Spiritual environments: “Detach from your role.” “Pain is unavoidable but suffering is optional.”

It is important to know the distinction between pain and suffering as many use these words interchangeably.

Whenever we refer to something painful (physical,emotional, psychological) that is happening in the “now,” we can refer to that as pain. That sensation is the opposite of pleasure in this world of duality.

However, once the experience has gone by then suffering enters into the picture. The mind may remember the experience and bring a heavy emotional toll, that is a wound or trauma which stays there until it is triggered or recalled.

In the society that I live now, we hear songs all the time bringing the idea of suffering ( one song goes like: “You left me for another..” etc) as perhaps something to be “proud of,” a victim with all the rights and privileges. That song is repeated and the collective consciousness take that as something alright. Nothing wrong with suffering if someone chooses to experience that, but as we know that is optional. I wouldn’t make a song about that but some do.

Thus, suffering is more concerned with recalling something that is gone. Emotionally that is a wound in need of healing.

When a person lives in the mind, to tell her : “Detach from the role” means absolutely nothing, for the “role;” what that person thinks to be or her perception or belief on how the world thinks of her, is all fabricated by the mind. Her mind.

Anyone could believe to be what they want to believe. Whether that is true or not, that is a different story. However, when we are speaking about a person, we are dealing with subjective “truths” more than anything.

That role is there. It is very real for the mind and to ask the mind to be someone else and detach from what it believes to be is contradictory.

That is how we could observe “spiritual” individuals pretending to BE something that they are not. The issue is that they live only in the mind.

It is until a person is able to FEEL what they ARE beyond the mind, that is once they could experience to be something else besides the body (name it what you will) when the mind realizes that whatever it has created is only something partial because there is a FEELING which could overtake our experience and bring us elation, joy without anything external special occurring in our mental world.

For instance, the mind could worry about any problem : What is going to happen? How can I resolve that? Overthinking enters. Anxiety settles, but then; we decide to be AWARE of that which I am talking about and a current of joy arrives. We feel good.

So what is that which I am talking about?

It is a presence. It came for the first time when I was meditating in my Brahma Kumaris days. I thought I was having “Yoga with God” given my background at that time. I wrote about this 10 years ago. Here is the article:

It finally happened! – Time to forget

It is during “meditation” or “contemplation” (my preferred label now) when I experience that after following the “steps” shared in the article below:

Knowing “yourself” 101- in 7 easy steps 🙂

Just as there is a mental “reality,” there is one transcending that. Which could be overwhelming. My friend Mathias called that at one time: “Inner Smile.”

At that point, it is easy to “detach from the role”as that sensation of joy is there. It overwrites everything else. It is an automatic “bye, bye” to the mind and its endless thoughts and worries.

Then the “I” wants to feel that “all the time, ” but it is not something that it is done. It just happens. The “doing” is to sit there “doing” nothing.

Now as I am writing this, the feeling is there.. Perhaps it can happen while “talking and moving around”? 🙂

Ah! Remembrance… perhaps?

Knowing “yourself” 101- in 7 easy steps :-)

Sit down in a quite place without distractions.

Become aware of your breathing in and out for a few breaths.

Discard everything you think you know: All the words describing yourself or another for those are false.

Discard all the ideas, problems, solutions, anticipations the mind could give you at that moment, for that is fantasy.

Treat the little “voice inside” as the words of someone else: Neither your friend nor your enemy. That voice shows “your” conditioning. Gently follow it until it dissipates on its own.

Discard your own self importance. “You” are “nothing” and when you are fine with that, “you” start to change.

FEEL that sense of BEING alright in that nothingness. It is that feeling what will feed you in frequency and vibration.

As you “practice” every day and go deeper into that feeling (after the mind is empty of its recurrent contents,) you may discover that true awareness may not reside in the mind.

From there you are own your own. Happy discovery!

From Meditation to Contemplation

As most individuals are slaves of their own minds and their conditioning, meditation entered the world of spirituality as a “panacea” for a “happy mind.”

Many are unaware of the thoughts running through their minds. Many believe that those thoughts are the expression of themselves and many want instant “solutions” to live in peace and happiness.

Meditation was part of that therapy: It can give you a time for yourself, a time of tranquility, a time to “think” something else. That “experience” has been labeled as “peace” by many.

As our observation and awareness increases, we may realize that we cannot have a “solution” unless we get to know the issue within us. That requires observation without judgment. While some have profited out of “methods” to teach someone to meditate, the fact of our own individuality will make us consider how feasible it is to follow a “one size fits all” method.

In Spirituality, we need to reinvent the wheel. There is no other way to know ourselves.

As we leave the mind, we may encounter feelings and emotions. Contemplation is to feel. We could be looking at Nature, as we feel the outside becoming the inside and vice versa. While in meditation there is “I” which is different than everything else, in contemplation, there is unity of all. In this, there are no thoughts or reflections.