I wanted to ask what is the role of being in service to others in one Spiritual Development and or you can guess you can say it in the overall evolutionary impulse of the universe to borrow a phrase from your book.
Chapter one: You are not your mind
The Greatest Obstacle to Enlightenment
Look inside ourselves for the true value, which is the radiant of joy and deep peace.
Enlightenment=>find the true nature beyond name and form. A connection between you and greater than you.
Inability to feel the connection => illusion of separation of you from the world around you. Then you perceive yourself, consciously or unconsciously, as an isolated fragment.Fear arises, conflict becomes norm.
Buddha’s definition of enlightenment = the end of suffering.
Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death.
Being not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. It is accessible to you NOW as your own deepest self, your true nature. You can know it only when your mind is still.
When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the NOW, Being can be felt.
To regain awareness of Being and to abide in that state of “feeling-realization” is enlightenment.
Being is an open concept, accessible. God is a close concept.
Identification with your mind, which causes thought to become compulsive. Everybody suffering from not able to stop thinking . This incessant mental noise prevent you from inner stillness that is inseparable from Being. It also creates a false mind-made self that casts a shadow of fear and suffering.
“I think, therefore I am” basic error : to equate thinking with Being and identify with thinking.
Compulsive thinker, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in an insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflict, a world that reflects the ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind.
Enlightenment is a state of wholeness, of being “at one” and therefore at peace.
Enlightenment stop compulsive thinker => end suffering, end conflict hence liberation.
Identification (thinking, considering ) with mind => creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship.It comes between you and yourself, between you and your follow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and god.
Thinking creates illusion there is you and a totally separate “other”. You then forget the essential fact that underneath the level of physical appearance and separate forms, you are one with all that is.
“forget”=>mean no longer feel this oneness as self evident reality.
use mind right => good, use mind wrong => destructive.
You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.
solve a problem doesn’t mean that you use your mind. Just as dogs love to chew bones…
Can you be free of your mind whenever you want to? can you turn off your mind, stop thinking? If NO the mind is using you. You are unconsciously identified with it, you are its slave.
The beginning of the freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity–the thinker.
Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. Start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated => you begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought. realize that all the things that truly matter-beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace-arise beyond the mind => begin to awaken.
FREE YOURSELF FROM YOUR MIND
The voice in head comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes and so on. The voice isn’t necessarily relevant to your current situation, it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imaging possible future situation. Its often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes => worry. The voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited.
Judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view.
Free yourself from your mind, the only true liberation.
Start listening to the voice in head as often as possible. Pay attention to any repetitive thought patterns=>”watching the thinker”
Listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence.
Listen to voice impartially, do not judge or condemn what you hear.
You will realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.
List to your thought -> aware your thought -> you yourself as witness of the thought-> a new dimension of consciousness come in.
Listen to your thought-> feel a conscious presence — your deeper self, behind or underneath your thought.
Hence the thought loses its power over you and quickly subsides—because you no longer energizing the mind through identification (agree with) it. This is the beginning of the end of involuntary and compulsive thinking.
Listen to your thought => witness your thought =>feel a conscious presence behind the thought=> not identify (agree with) the thought => the thought loses power => thought subsides => the compulsive thinking end
Thought subsides = metal stream discontinuity => a gap pf “no mind” The gap gradually will become longer.
gaps occur — feel stillness and peace inside => beginning your natural state of felt ONENESS with Being —which is usually obscured by the mind.
Practice to deepen the sense of stillness and peace=> the joy of Being. No lost of consciousness . State of inner connectedness => more alert and more awake.
Raises the vibrational frequency of the energy field that gives life to physical body.
state of selfless => the whole external world become relatively insignificant.
watching the thinker=> create gap of mind stream=> focus attention to NOW
essence of meditation.
giving fullest attention to day to day action…pay attention to the sense perception associated with the activity: the sound and feel of water, movement of hands, scent of soap…
measure of success in this practice: the degree of peace that you feel within.
Vital step toward enlightenment : learn to disidentify (not agree with) from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger.
ENLIGHTENMENT: RISING ABOVE THOUGHT
Mind is a tool, an instrument, for a specific task, when the task is completed, you lay it down.
90% people’s thinking is repetitive and useless , because of its dyfunctional and often negative nature and harmful => serious leakage of vital energy.
compulsive thinking is actually addiction : you no longer feel that you have the choice to stop => false sense of pleasure that invariably turns into pain.
why addicted to thinking -> identified ( agree ) with it => derive your sense of self from the content and activity of your mind.
wrongfully believe if stop thinking => you cease to be you.
grow up -> form mental image base on personal and cultural => call this phantom self the ego.
Ego = false self created by unconscious identification with the mind.
Ego only consider past and future important, not present moment.
Ego mode => the mind is dysfunctional. always concerned with keeping the past alive.
projects itself into future to ensure its continued survival and seek some kind of release or fulfillment there.
ego project past => future
The present moment holds the key to liberation. But you cannot find the present as long as you are your mind.
mind is a stage in the evolution of consciousness. we need to go on next stage now as a matter of urgency, otherwise we will be destroyed by the mind which have grown into a monster.
Thinking <> consciousness
no conscious no thought , but conscious does not need thought
use mind for practical purpose ….when a creative solution is needed, you oscillate every few mins between thought and stillness, between mind and no mind.
mind = survival machine, attack and defense, against other minds, gathering and sorting information. but no for creative
EMOTION: THE BODY’S REACTION TO YOUR MIND
Mind=thought + emotion
Emotion is the body’s reaction to your mind , a reflection of mind in body
the more identified with your thinking, your like or dislike, judgments, interpretations, which is to say the less present you are as the watching consciousness, the stronger the emotional energy will be.
conflict between mind and emotion, the thought will be the lie, the emotion will be the truth.
Observe emotion same important as observing thought. Don’t analyse, just watch. Focus your attention within.
Emotion is overpower thought and try to take you over, unless there is enough presence in you.
Emotion: loss of awareness of who you are beyond name and form.
Emotion= fear + continuous sense of threat + deep sense of abandonment + incompleteness pain
mind tasks = fight or remove emotional pain…can only cover up the pain temporarily.
mind can’t find solution.
Positive emotion such as love and joy => inseparable with natural state of inner connectedness with Being.
Gaps happened accidentally for most people triggered by great beauty, extreme physical exertion or even great danger.
love and joy lie beyond emotions. fully conscious of your emtions and be able to feel them ( love and joy) which lie beyond emotion.
emotion = “disturbance”
love, joy and peace are deep states of Being. the have no opposite.
pleasure from outside , joy from inside.
Don’t seek to become free of desire or “achieve” enlightenment. (desire is a source of suffering or pain) Become present. Be there as the observer of the mind.
emotional pain is main cause of physical pain.
Two level of pain: pain create now and pain from the past. Ceasing to create pain in the present and dissolving the past pain
CREATE NO MORE PAIN IN THE PRESENT
Pain create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. thought level =>form of judgment, emotional level is negativity.
Intensity of pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment.
The more you are able to honor and accept the NOW, the more you are free of pain, of suffering and free of the egoic mind.
Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the NOW. because Mind can’t function and in control without TIME, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless NOW as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable.
Being and NOW covered up by time with mind, the true nature becomes obscured by mind.
don’t create anymore time as time add past pain. stop creating time, realize deeply the the present moment is all you ever have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life. Always say “yes” to the present moment.
PAST PAIN: DISSOLVING THE PAIN-BODY
The accumulated pain is a negative energy field that occupies your body and mind.
Pain-body…awaken by certain situation from dormant stage, resonates with a pain pattern from your past.
Watch yourself if there any sign of unhappy , which maybe sign of awakening pain-body. Can take the form of irritation, impatience, somber mood, desire to hurt, anger, rage, depression, .