Getting out of the mind is easy to do, hard to teach…
Mainly because the words are misleading: you don’t want to control your mind, you can’t. You want to control and direct your attention. Your mind is not controllable… But your attention is.
Once you get the hang of it… have an experience outside of your mind, life starts to open up.
The trick is not to try to change your thoughts… that would still trap you in the mind. Or change your fear… or change your desire… or change anything.
What works is to take your attention off the mind and put it on something, anything, in the present. My favorite is to download the Heaven on Earth and follow the path of the energy bundle through the 40 stops. It goes slowly, and it does work on all the 40 locations in the body: removing blockages, one after the other. I don’t remember where I teach the stops… so I may have to recreate it… I’ll add it to this post. Email me if you want it.
Another way to move your attention off the mind is to do the “find your feet” exercise… search the site to find it… I share it in some other article.
A third way is to start examining minutely your hand… you can even do that while you talk to someone, or listen to a lecture…
What is wrong with the mind-control type of teachings?
- the mind-control teachings, the teachings that say: control your mind? After all they say that if you can control your mind, you can achieve anything…
- And the Law of Attraction teachers/fans say: if you hold the image in your mind, and hold onto it long enough, it will happen…
- And the Positive Thinking people say: if you can turn everything into its opposite, or just avoid saying anything negative, you’ll be happy, and blah blah blah…
The problem with these “teachings” is that they don’t understand how a human works. They approach it, alternately from the body machine angle, then the mystical angle, but they never see that it is neither, and it’s both.
Human Being would be the highest life form we know... at this point of our knowledge.
Let me look at some examples of life forms, so you know what I am talking about.
We’ll look at life forms from the point of view of their adaptability to circumstances, from the point of view of their chances of survival.
We are going to look at
- a rock (we’ll use it as contrast)
- a tree
- a domesticated or tamed animal, like an elephant or a cow
- a domesticated or tamed human (socialized, educated, mind directed)
- a gazelle
- and a human being (someone who does not live in their mind)
We’ll look at their behavior in a situation where mobility means survival. A flood… like Katrina, like Hurricane Sandy.
A rock, a tree, a domesticated animal and a domesticated human will perish.
Why? They are encumbered. They are not mobile. They are not free to act on emergency: they are tied to a location, and won’t move. Their source of nourishment and their source of self is tied to a location: they’d rather die than move. Of course, the tree and the rock can’t move, but neither can a domesticated animal or human… they are not much higher a life-form than a rock or a tree.
The gazelle is not tied to anything… it will run until it gets to higher ground, or die trying. And the same is true for a real human being…
The part that makes an animal and a human susceptible to annihilation is that they expect things given to them, and they expect it to continue forever…
The “organ” that tells them that it’s what they should do: expect things to continue forever, is the mind
But life is not friendly to beings holding their hands out, hoping there is someone or something that is supposed to take care of them. Life, actually, is disrupted by these hands-out people, and their “keepers”… and Life will eliminate them when it will have had enough.
We could say that the number one enemy of life is the Mind.
The mind that you are a slave to, the mind that is unable to be in the present, or even relate to it, the mind that is a never ending repetition of 1’s and zeros… without any rhyme and reason, but more importantly, without giving a hoot whether you live or die.
It is near impossible to teach to get out of the mind, because you are listening to what I am saying through the mind. If you are listening for knowledge or understanding, you are listening from the mind… and the mind may lie to you and say that you can get out of the mind, but it can’t and it won’t.
You want to listen without focus, without concern, without paying particular “mind” to what I am saying. You want to take it like you take the water in the shower… allow it to wash over you, so you can get wet.
That, abandoning understanding, is the first step to shake off the tyranny of the mind over life, over your life.
another inspirational video about the beauty of the mind http://youtu.be/K-g_sxCbhvs
thank you sophie
yes, I mean nervousness, or a concern.
or by knot in the stomach you mean nervousness?
yes, sophie, i’m guessing you are talking about that ”sour” feeling in my stomach area right? I don’t feel it as great as you do, but i still feel it.
I am glad Kate… now if you could just get that knot out of your stomach… right?
actually, you do want to look… or it will sneak up on you.
Hi Sophie, this trick really works! last week i was miserable as i was trying to fight off my negative thoughts, but in the end it made me more in my mind and was trapped there. Now, whenever I am aware of the myself in my mind, (i.e retreating back to myself, back to my thoughts without paying attention to reality) I put my attention on the present, on my surroundings, i feel much lighter and happier now. thank you Sophie!
Sophie, like all of your articles, extremely interesting, and enough information to make me ponder on how I perceive my mind. I will definitely cross the street, and won’t it even look to the other side to see if it follows me. I’ll let you know how that works.
Yes, having an emotional response to Mind as the enemy makes it worse… The best attitude is the same as with someone you don’t want to talk… go to the other side of the street and start looking at the shop window.
If you are good at it, it won’t pursue you there, will just walk by. Just don’t get attached either way.
Thank you for your share.
You answered my question from this morning: is there anyone on Empire Avenue who would be interested in what I have to offer… well, you were at least interested in what I have to say… and your take on it. Thank you
Interesting article.
Have been practicing meditation since 1987, twice a day or more when I go out for a long walk in the forest. Absolutely love the quiet time, the holidays from my mind’s chatter. For me absolutely necessary for renewing myself.
However I do not regard my mind as the enemy of my life. Quietly observing my mind, I experience that the tiniest shifts in how I look, feel and think of my world and life can make huge differences to my experience.
If you say that the number one enemy of life is the Mind you are absolutely correct. If I say it’s a friendly companion in my discovery that I live in an absolutely user friendly universe where all I have to do to receive what I need is to ask, I’m as correct.
Although I meditate in various ways, learned TM back in 1987, I love the views of Peter Russell on this subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_Zb-2WCGCg
http://youtu.be/b_Zb-2WCGCg
Okay, abandoning understanding. Okay. I am connecting for utility, for purpose, for meaning…certainly when I connect to Source, the experience is different. A different kind of awareness and being.