It’s time! Just as there is a time when a child matures into adulthood and is ready to move out into the world and begin his or her own life, so too comes a time when the maturing soul becomes aware enough of the massive ego influence in the mind and is ready to move beyond.
While the monkey mind may still chatter up a storm, there comes a time when it is easier and easier to catch this chatter midstream, sometimes even ahead of time, right at the beginning.
This morning, wandering out to the kitchen for my coffee, I caught that monkey mind red-handed with some story it was about to start rabbiting on about, and I heard myself say I’m moving out. Enough is enough. It’s time to move on.
I liked the idea of moving out of my mind, away from the tiresome chatter – somewhere peaceful and inspirational. Where would I go? Who would I be? Where would I live? Of course, mind supplied the answer from all its learning of spirituality over the years.
I am a soul in a physical body, having an experience on planet earth. I am not my body. I am not my mind. I AM. I AM that I AM. I AM energy. etc. etc.
I’ll just live in the beingness I experience in morning meditations and walks in nature that I know is the real me. All the time. I’ll live in a space of nothingness and allow all thinking to arise from that space as I move into the actions of my day.
Yes – mind was well learned. It had those answers alright, but from experience, I knew that living those learnings wasn’t quite so easy.
A Mahatma Gandhi quote appeared in my morning reading.
“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
Ha! INCLUDING ME! When I don’t pay attention, that monkey mind full of learned beliefs and opinions and judgments and attachments and resistance just marches right through my thinking and I fall into actions based on old habits that no longer serve me. That mind just thinks its the boss.
Sounds just like the rebellious child I remember from so long ago. Somewhere around the tender age of 9, I decided I didn’t like the environment of my home life and that I would run away – up over the huge hill behind our house, on up the road to neighboring farms – we lived out in the country. I remember I got up to the top of the hill. No one came looking for me. How long would it take for them to even miss me? A long time it seemed – I eventually climbed back down that hill and went into the house. Nope – not a soul had missed me. My great adventure of moving out dissolved. It wasn’t yet time.
Outmoded States of Consciousness
A mind that just won’t stop is so common of course. I certainly don’t have a copyright on that. Some minds are more persistent than others – but until we learn we aren’t our minds, they (the minds) can be quite torturous at times. Hence the need for meditation practices, and walks in nature, and cuddles with my dog to still that endless monkey chatter.
Yet still the idea appeals. We move out of houses and relationships and jobs we have outgrown, so too we move out of states of consciousness we have outgrown. It takes effort, sometimes a lot of effort, to recognize old brain tracks in action pulling us back to the familiar, to the easy, to the known. So I’m going to continue this journey of moving out.
I’m moving out of ways of being that I’ve outgrown – like giving in to creeping apathy when I am starting a new project that has a self-imposed or non-existent deadline. Like believing mind when it tells me my project isn’t really of value or doesn’t matter. Or that my body hurts too much to go for a walk today and really needs a rest. Or when frustration arises in the middle of an activity and I allow that frustration to dictate and determine my next steps, very often heading for the refrigerator.
Yep – I’m moving out of those mindsets. After all, that’s all they are. I know this mind – it’s like a cunning fox, and it will find lots of small ways to creep back into my daily living. But if I’m not there, if I’m not in that same old mindset that listens to those stories, then they will just have to go back to wherever they came from. They are just stories. and in the process, something else arises from deep within – the inner power I AM which serves me so well when mind is empty of the chatter and resistance and distraction. What arises is the experience of being in the still center of the world, not just a theory of that stillness.
A Conscious Effort
I use techniques like my vignettes to remind me to come back to the stillness and power I AM. I use amazing music through headphones that remind me of the source of power I AM. I use deep breathing for just 4 breaths.
I sit and clear my mind and allow Life Itself to look through my eyes, listen through my ears, to feel through my heart. True power.
AND THEN … something magical happens. As the old monkey mind falls away, and I continue to keep myself in the calm center of the life happening in and around me, I discover another kind of mind, a different mind, one that is sharp and clear and beautiful. The all-powerful essence I AM can flow freely through this mind. It can inspire, bring new ideas, create synchronicity and awe, accomplish in ways I have never previously considered.
This mind becomes the strong and supportive river banks that the essence I AM can flow through. This mind functions just as it was supposed to.
Moving out of the old ego-mind proves to be the kind of step that finally leaving home when I was a teenager was. It has turned my life around and delivered a way of being that lives on the edge of the unknown, often challenging, drawing me ever on into new visions, insights, inspiration, and activity. Now life seems to happen much more in my body instead of my head. And it’s ALL GOOD.
Old Ways of Being
In order to make way for the new, we have to let go of the old. Just as clearing out a wardrobe/closet of old clothes makes space for the new, so too clearing out a mind of habituated thinking makes way for new ways of Being. To do this entails becoming conscious of old ways of thinking.
Judgments
Judgments are a good place to start. Judgments of how things and/or people should or shouldn’t be, what they should or shouldn’t say. Judgments that are critical, condemning, ridiculing. This includes judgments of ourselves – in truth all judgments we make of the outer world are but reflections of the judgments we make of our inner worlds. See here for more on that.
The judgments ego makes are designed to make you feel superior, or even at times inferior. You’ll know by how they make you feel. There is a difference between judging and discerning. Discernment evaluates, unemotionally, the facts. Facts can then be the basis for right action or right non-action.
Let’s leave judgments behind in the old mind so we can transcend into new ways of being.
Attachments
Attachments to ideas, opinions, people, things are like sticky spider webs. They are ego informing you that your life will only work if you have these things and people (or don’t have them – as the case may be). They say life has to be a certain way in order for you to be happy which actually creates a very unhappy mind in which to live.
Wanting to change what isn’t working in your life or the world around you is human nature. FIRST – comes total acceptance of how things are. Michael Singer talks of coming across a car accident with someone bleeding badly. If you are unable to accept all that blood, you are unable to be of any help at all
Transcending the need for attachments means being willing to allow everything in your world to be exactly as it is in this moment. When you can dwell in this moment in peace, no matter the situation, the peace of the moment will bring to you the ideas and inspiration for next steps, should any be needed.
Let’s leave attachments to how things and people should be behind and transcend into a deep appreciation of what this powerful present moment brings when we allow it to be.
Resistance
Steven Pressfield writes very powerfully about resistance in The War of Art. He gives resistance a personality we can all recognize and he says that resistance will hone in on that which is most important for you to be doing in your life. Indeed, at times, resistance can feel like the very devil itself, the hold it appears to have is so strong.
The work, once again, is becoming conscious in the moment and recognizing resistance in action. Stephen has an awesome section in The War of Art about becoming professional as an antidote to resistance – i.e. establishing ways of being that are professional as opposed to amateur.
It’s all a part of the journey life takes us on – becoming aware of who we really are behind the facade of the ego-mind and all its shenanigans. Happy traveling.