In theory, the mind belongs to us, not we to it. When we appear, as babes, in this world, mind is a near blank, we are fascinated by it at once, all those sensations rush in to it, noises, tastes, colors, shapes, touches, all are new, each one a fantastic direct experience . Slowly, the mind sorts them out for us, gradually the mind comes to cognize the world for us, it interprets the world, assigns concepts to our sensational impressions. Language arises in for us, in the mind. The mind begins to "think" in concepts, in words...we slowly forget to experience the world directly, or even that we ever even did experience the world directly, without having the mind conceptualizing "meaning" for us. As God let Adam do, in the bible, we allow the mind to assign everything in the world a name. "Bird", "tree", "ball", "house", "dog", "mommy", "eat", "food", "hungry","yes", "no", "me", "you"... everything, from the simple to the abstract. Nouns, verbs, every experience is duly cataloged, by the mind. The mind fills up with ways we "should be", it chooses our opinions, based on what "sounds good" according to its programming, even if direct experience would demonstrate otherwise. The mind says "I", "me"...as if, it were "the master" of the being, who is the true "us". Where are we all this time? We are fascinated by it's doings, so much so, that we come to believe we are the mind, and rarely, if ever, question its validity. Finally we use the interpretations, the concepts provided us by the mind almost exclusively to discern the world, and barely take in enough direct perception to navigate our bodies amongst the objects of this world.
Then one day, something quite extra-ordinary happens, (while we sit beneath a tree in North Carolina for instance), for some reason,which the mind can not fathom, we "come to" have a moment of lucid awakening. Something in a particular moment penetrates through the mind's veil of conceptual interpretation, it touches us to our core being, and like an infant, we have a direct experience once more. When this happens, the mind, quickly begins to do everything to distract us, from having more direct perception, it starts to "explain" the experience away, reducing the experience to a "concept". Yet if we realize what we have forgotten, that is our true "High Self", and its true vocation, which is to experience the world directly, we can wrestle the mind, make it take a second seat to the real us, insist that it assume it's correct place, as our tool, not our master.
To master the mind, requires constant vigilance. It is simple. We gain strength over it every time we directly take in impressions. When we feel our own self, really there, looking out our eyes, at the tree, seeing afresh, allowing the veritable flood of direct impressions to deliver to us the different textures of the bark, shades and tints of color, the changing patterns of the leaves, the tracing of twigs out to the leaf ends, each different, unique. Being here, in the ever-changing moment is our true vocation, recording for us,( like a camera,) the impressions of direct experience, is the job of the mind.
On Aug 20, 2014 Rebecca McCarty wrote :
In theory, the mind belongs to us, not we to it. When we appear, as babes, in this world, mind is a near blank, we are fascinated by it at once, all those sensations rush in to it, noises, tastes, colors, shapes, touches, all are new, each one a fantastic direct experience . Slowly, the mind sorts them out for us, gradually the mind comes to cognize the world for us, it interprets the world, assigns concepts to our sensational impressions. Language arises in for us, in the mind. The mind begins to "think" in concepts, in words...we slowly forget to experience the world directly, or even that we ever even did experience the world directly, without having the mind conceptualizing "meaning" for us. As God let Adam do, in the bible, we allow the mind to assign everything in the world a name. "Bird", "tree", "ball", "house", "dog", "mommy", "eat", "food", "hungry","yes", "no", "me", "you"... everything, from the simple to the abstract. Nouns, verbs, every experience is duly cataloged, by the mind. The mind fills up with ways we "should be", it chooses our opinions, based on what "sounds good" according to its programming, even if direct experience would demonstrate otherwise. The mind says "I", "me"...as if, it were "the master" of the being, who is the true "us". Where are we all this time? We are fascinated by it's doings, so much so, that we come to believe we are the mind, and rarely, if ever, question its validity. Finally we use the interpretations, the concepts provided us by the mind almost exclusively to discern the world, and barely take in enough direct perception to navigate our bodies amongst the objects of this world.
Then one day, something quite extra-ordinary happens, (while we sit beneath a tree in North Carolina for instance), for some reason,which the mind can not fathom, we "come to" have a moment of lucid awakening. Something in a particular moment penetrates through the mind's veil of conceptual interpretation, it touches us to our core being, and like an infant, we have a direct experience once more. When this happens, the mind, quickly begins to do everything to distract us, from having more direct perception, it starts to "explain" the experience away, reducing the experience to a "concept". Yet if we realize what we have forgotten, that is our true "High Self", and its true vocation, which is to experience the world directly, we can wrestle the mind, make it take a second seat to the real us, insist that it assume it's correct place, as our tool, not our master.
To master the mind, requires constant vigilance. It is simple. We gain strength over it every time we directly take in impressions. When we feel our own self, really there, looking out our eyes, at the tree, seeing afresh, allowing the veritable flood of direct impressions to deliver to us the different textures of the bark, shades and tints of color, the changing patterns of the leaves, the tracing of twigs out to the leaf ends, each different, unique. Being here, in the ever-changing moment is our true vocation, recording for us,( like a camera,) the impressions of direct experience, is the job of the mind.