Video: Overview
The other day I met someone in the consultation room who came in with all kind of issues. I asked her whether she had racing thoughts. She said, “Yes!” You are easily worried about something? “Yes.” I said, “Let me tell you something that is outside of mainstream medicine and psychology. Are you open to that?” She said “Yes.”
I continued:
“What do you do when a thought arises that you don’t like? You try to get rid of it. You are looking for a cause. You are trying to work it out, which only leads to a more escalating nature of what is arising, isn’t it?” Her response was, “Yes.”
If you look at the design of the mind, it is all about trying to get rid of what is arising when you find that the thought is not in keeping with your true values, is weird, or inconsistent with what you know. Isn’t that true?” Her response was, “Yes.”
“Now let’s look at what is true.
First, let’s establish that your thoughts arise. You don’t think them up. You say you think, but in fact thoughts arise.”
“Secondly, you have no control over what arises. You have to be with that for a little moment to fully get this fundamental truth.”
“Thirdly, and I call this the truth of existence, you can’t undo what is already existing, isn’t it? When a thought arises, you can’t undo it. It is there! Yet all of our mind activities are geared towards that. You can now see how futile a lot of our mental activities are.”
“Given these three fundamental truths about your arising reality, two questions present themselves. The first question is, Where am I then? Where do I have a say in the matter of my life when my thoughts arise and I have no control over that they arise and what arises? You might feel a bit desperate realizing this and that is perfectly alright. I am not telling you anything that is not true. I am not telling you good news or bad news. I am just telling you what is true. This is the human condition.”
“The second question that presents itself is, How to be with what is arising once it is there? If I have no control over what arises, then how to be with that? If you are with this question long enough, you will realize that the only way to be with what is arising, is allowing and letting be. This is the only way of being that is in keeping with the true nature of your reality, which is an arising reality.”
“You will find out when you have the courage to do so – since this counter-intuitive – that when you allow and let be, and you allow for the totality of the experience, it tips you over the wave of the arising thoughts and you land in a place, where there is peace. It brings you to a place where you are in touch with your true nature. A place where there is perspective which leads you to right action.”
“The solution is not found in engaging with your thoughts.”
“When you live by the truth of existence, and you allowing for the totality of what is arising brings you to the other side, where there is peace. There is clear vision. You naturally are inclined to take right action.”
There is nothing to solve. There is nothing to work out. There is just allowing and letting be. You think when you allow for the most horrible thought, you will die, or it might turn into reality. Let me tell you: It is not true. Nothing is bigger than who you. More then that, most likely the opposite is true: Anything that is arising and you do not allow for, most likely will persist.”
“She looked at me and said, “this is literally the best peace of advise anybody has given to me in many years of my life.”
I responded by saying, “Helen, You look 20 years younger!”
Video: Busy like a fly in a glass bottle
Most of us are living our life running around, being busy like a fly in a bottle. Bouncing back from the invisible glass wall of our arising thoughts that tell us what is possible and what is not. We think we are responding to what is happening, but in fact we are responding to the arising thoughts that are provoked by what is happening.
Video: The human predicament
Thoughts arise. We do not think them up voluntarily. Our thoughts have a compelling nature that we cannot escape. We say, I think,” but that is not true. Thoughts arise. Even the “I” arises in the thinking.
Video: Being asleep in a dream
When you wake up in the morning, it is not like, you wake up and there is life! You wake up in a bunch of arising thoughts. And your arising thoughts tends to take you somewhere. We think we have control over what rises, but we don’t. You are asleep within the dream state.
Video: Our solutions amplify our problems
We often think that the solution to our problems lies in interacting with them, figuring them out.
Video: You never are what an arising thought is pointing to
Some of these thoughts start out with “you,” like “You are this, or you are that.” They tend to take you somewhere. You are carried away as in a dream
The truth is: You never are what an arising thought is pointing to
Video: What decisions have you made?
If you seize up your life and you take out your list of problems, you might see that most of your problems have to do with how you are or were responding to your arising thoughts.
If you look at your relationships, what are you reacting to? If you feel that you are not getting ahead in your projects, that you are easily distracted or don’t finish what you have started, what arising thoughts are you reacting to? Do they sound familiar? Do they chase you and resurface at the next project? Have you come to the conclusion that life really sucks?
But is this true? Does life really suck?
What decisions have you made in your life?
What relationship have you ended, while true love was present?
What solutions have you created?
Video: A life of freedom and self-expression
What would it be like to life your life not from a place of reaction, but from a place where you are in touch with your true nature? Write down what you see is possible if you were to do this.
Video: The tyrannie of your arising thoughts
Our thoughts have a compelling nature that we cannot escape.
It is not the voice of your mother, father, or bother – although it may sound that way. They are left-overs of things said to you when you were impressionable as a young person and you did not allow yourself fully be with what was said. They hang around like a virus that has incorporated itself in your system. They more you resist them, the more more they become part of your system.
Beyond that, they have no meaning
Video: Different classes of arising thoughts
Those that are condemning in nature
Those that are shoulds or musts
Those that are judgmental
Those that tell you that something is not possible
Those that invoke shame
Those that evoke guilt
Video: My personal example
From a young age, I had a speech impediment. I stuttered. This was a horrible experience. I remember going to the store buying bread which my mother asked me to. Standing in line I was counting how many people were in front of me. Five people, four, three two, then it was my turn. My heart was pounding. “I might stammer.” I felt embarrassed!
This experience shaped my life. The decisions that I took. What I saw was possible and what not.
Then many years later, I suddenly realized that there was nothing wrong with my speech. I had a perfect speech. It was the thought that I might be stammering that had me stammer!
Video: How to be with your occurring reality?
The question is, what do you do with them? Do you choose to interact with them? If you have been with this question long enough, you realize that the only way to be with what is arising that is in keeping with the true nature of your reality, is allowing and letting be.
Video: Being in touch with your true nature
To unwind from these habits, one must go through a process of allowing and letting be and to find out that one is not going to die or fall apart. What falls apart is how you see yourself and what emerges is a true sense of self – which is impersonal, radiant, omnipresent and divine in its nature. What emerges is a silence that gives rise to a presence of the miraculous. A presence untainted by the mind. A presence beyond words.
What emerges is the silence of being
In this space you no longer are that you experience something, but you are that which gives rise to it.
Video: The truth of existence
What arises is not reasonable. All of your efforts to get rid of what is arising are futile. No effort will prevent what arises to arise. Once it is there, it is there. Existence is inescapable. Existence is the ultimate truth if you don’t know where to start.
Once I did not know where to start, and this is where I started. The truth of existence is the ultimate truth, which is not a belief.
The truth of existence is what sets you free from the compelling nature of your arising thoughts.
Video: The primitive mind
If you look at it closely, all of your mental activities are geared towards denying the existence of what is arising for you. You don’t realize that this what keeps it stuck.
The term “primitive” refers to the mind not relating to the arising world in keeping with the true nature of arising. Applying what works in the world of objects does not work very well in the world of our arising reality. Resisting what is arising, grants it suchness, and is what keeps it
The depth of assimilation of the primitive mind in your life. It is a habit. We do this over and over, expecting a different result, rather that seeing it for what it is.
The primitive mind transcending itself is the enlightened mind.
Video: The enlightened mind
The enlightened mind relates to the arising world in a way that is appropriate. In a way that is in keeping with the nature of arising, which is allowing and letting be.
Video: Three revelations
1. The only way to be with what is arising is allowing and letting be
2. Allowing for the totality of the experience, brings you in touch with your true nature
3. When you are in touch with your true nature, there is peace; there is clear vision; there is right action
Video: The solution to your problems
You true nature will tell you what the solution to your problem is. You don’t have to work it it. It does not take any effort. There is nothing to do
Video: Being in touch with your true nature
Video: Surrender
Video: The inspired voice
Video: The voice of separateness
Video: Being guided by the truth of existence
Video: Living by the truth of existence and seeing where that leads you to
This post is a work in progress
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