Peeling the layers of the mind

I introspect daily. For me, over the years, I have realized that this is one habit that can make us aware about what we are thinking and whether the contents of thought can be termed as appropriate or not, whether we carry a certain amount of unnecessary baggage and how to become more free, more spontaneous, more compassionate, more connected – so to say. Do we do this for display, to say that we are right, do we do this for some kind of confirmation…or should we do it because it is required and it has an effect of mind cleansing?

With the passage of time, if we do not imbibe this habit in us (maybe because it will not be known or simply because we may choose not to give time for this activity), our verbalized experiences may start to ‘feel’ dated or stale and we may not even add a fresh perspective to situations and worse – we may not even realize that our experiences have nothing to offer! Before the stale experiences become the ‘new normal’ we must indulge in this act of introspection whenever and wherever possible.

Introspection feels like decoding the layers of mental constructs, which we keep forming, and sometimes reinforcing, throughout the day. In this process of introspection that needs to be done ideally throughout our lifetime, there may be questions we may encounter as we discover the inner recesses of our minds (notice the amount of baggage and many sub thoughts that we carry irrespective of any situation)….

Questions about ‘why me only/ why not me’ –any neutral situation becomes tainted by asking these questions. These questions indicate thoughts related to jealousy, comparison, victimization, lower self worth, ego, insecurity in us, fear, time pressures, desires, compulsions and so on. All these are required to be systematically decoded, analyzed so as to understand what can be in our control.

Tendency to procrastinate – why start now? If we encounter fear and inhibition, warped or objectified ideas of progress or prestige, ego, inability to respond to change, insisting and expecting that the situation remains the same, some sense of loss and strong attachment to a given set of actions – all these will create a procrastinating tendency in us. The basic response then, will be to ask ourselves why are we creating this opposing force of retardation within us? What do we have to fear and again, what is fear itself? Most of it, we realize, is just an illusion – that someone will leave us, some job will go away, we will be thrown on the streets, people will laugh at us (so much imagination!!). Why do we seem to be overly concerned with what people have to say about ‘us’ – as a construct? Are we so rigid, should people really bow down to our idea of self? These basic assumptions are extremely unrealistic and not maintainable. If ‘self’ evolves and changes every second, then why do we expect ourselves and people to confirm to some ‘fixed’ idea? Procrastination means that we fear criticism about our inner belief or that people will not validate ‘us’. There is only one way to counter this force – do whatever resists you, because encountering the inner resistance will compel you to seek answers.

Judging and roasting others – This tendency points to ego, aggression, compulsion of adhering to fixed standards, insecurity, devaluing one self and therefore others, being inflexible, and inability to change. Any situation is neutral. By projecting our judgment, we taint it unnecessarily. I think, this tendency also indicates hyper rush, anxiety and unwillingness to just ‘listen’ and being attentive to what greets us. We are in a rush to complete things, (multitask as well), we load our beliefs on others to the point that people feel suffocated by our dumping tendency and we do not reciprocate the sensitivity that people wish we offer to them for understanding their issues. The biggest tragedy is that we don’t listen, so we don’t heal ourselves and neither do we give a chance for people to heal themselves.

By relooking at above tendencies over a period of time, we may be confronted by a series of next questions that concern with the following –

Who am ‘I’? What is this ‘I’? What is ‘thought’? Do thoughts construct ‘I’? What changes? If you find encountering yourself with these questions, then you have peeled some layers of mental constructs and moved closer to the nature of ‘Force’ which is related to the presence of consciousness. You may also consider yourself to be stable to a large extent despite externally fleeting circumstances and any situation may direct your mind to generate these questions and look for a perspective. Again, situations are neutral. What has changed is the questions that you are asking yourself which thereby shapes your approach of action and your life. At this stage, you are still being personal about your issues, although you are becoming aware of your larger connect with the environment and any other phenomena which are related (or seem to be related) to you. You may also deal with complimentary questions dealing with role of ‘memory’, socio-cultural aspects and any of such generic, broad, encompassing ideas. You may start to discover a spiral behavior of Time, some values, some principles that get manifested in any life form, in any situation, at any scale and in any time scale. This means your mind has expanded beyond your limited sense of self and body.

This now means that you have moved several layers closer to consciousness, yet there are still some layers of subtle thoughts that you will encounter. I would say, these now constitute a layer of thoughts that have got nothing to do with any external trigger but these thoughts are realized as a ‘tendency’ or a Force.

These inquiries include –

What is consciousness? Are we spiritual, or the mind or the body or each of such component distinct? Is mind personal or universal? Is mind real or some kind of a Force? How does mind come into existence? If we are the Force, then what is our ‘particular’ role to play? I have no answers here – just as I didn’t have any answers to above questions. The journey just keeps getting more fundamental and the Force (called mind) just keeps getting turned inward, away from the external stimuli. And probably then, at times, for a nano second, we may ‘see’ the waves that get generated from the presence of consciousness – the waves, as they surface above, are seen as mind and a combination of feelings and intellect.

So we may realize that wave generation is a phenomenon that is perpetual and need not be taken personally. It is a phenomenon that we (as constructs) are subjected to. And hence the only thing possible to do, is to ride over this phenomenon!

Fixing the problem

I have just begun to consider this question of encountering a problem and trying to fix it. It all started with a discussion regarding how people used to react to anger and how they tend to do so now – justification being the norm.  Considering the nature of anger, it reveals the tendency of thoughts embedded in our existence.

It is my feeling, that our urge to solve a problem – (when we are young, the problem appears to be situated externally – with a situation or a person or an object; as we grow, we start to realize that the problem’s basis may be about how we are interpreting the scenario) – is an indicator about our compulsion to control our thoughts. There are several obstacles in doing so –

1)      We think that the problem is rational in its nature, so we can fix it easily – just fix the person or the situation or whatever is bothering you. By repeated attempts, it becomes clear that it is not easy to do so and there are many dimensions to judge a situation and cannot be bracketed in pure black and white terms. So we begin to realize the cause and effect phenomena and see objects as related to one another. We try to do something on one object and it affects the other and we have to finally deal with a whole bunch of inter dependent scenarios like a juggling challenge!

2)      Frustrated or out of realization, we may begin to then question our own thoughts that ‘define’ the problem. The problem, we come to know, is not outside, but depends on how one chooses to think or visualize and act on it. Hence, the search starts within and we are convinced that ‘we’ ourselves are the problem! That’s the first difficult step to accept, so the external blame game stops and the internal review begins! However, we are still in the ‘fixing’ mode of operation and by this assumption, we try to fix our own selves – in terms of what thoughts are agreeable, which are not, what thoughts keep you disturbed, what keeps you buoyant? Then we try to control them – namely suppress the bad thoughts and prolong the good ones. There also, we encounter difficulties, since controlling thoughts, means to control the external situation as well – which is something that can’t be frozen. If the external situation can’t be frozen, then can we freeze our internal good thoughts forever? Again, we realize that thoughts change – from good to bad and vice versa. By repeatedly learning this lesson, one day, we let go of our thoughts. In other words, we do not compel us or force us or condition us to act in a particular way, so the situation will turn out good and there will be no harm to us. In a nutshell, we do not expect anything from us or the situation. Action, which depends on our interpretation of existence, compels us to expect something in return. Now this is a trap, as the consequences are not in our hands and hence our expectations aren’t fulfilled. That further causes additional compulsions to keep doing better next time, but we remain stuck in the cyclic nature of cause and effect. Thus, we realize what is there to control or argue on? Why is there so much cry on frustration and what is the need of getting angry?

3)      The above step is more difficult to accept, since we start to see thoughts as a phenomenon in themselves, and through which, we sense the world. Then our gaze changes from analysis of a phenomenon to observing the phenomenon. Herein, I am saying ‘observation’ as being purely non judgmental and seeing a particular thing in silence. Along the way, we realize more things. We realize the nature of thought and what it contains (many things from good to evil). We realize the trigger of thoughts (space-time and causation). We realize that thoughts are like any other phenomenon – here to stay and forever changing. We may realize that the attachment/ anger/ ego are the effects of thoughts of ‘us’ and a combination of efforts (analysis + observation + decoding + silence + meditation + concentration) may be required to see thoughts in a neutral way. This is the realization of Direct Experience, where the differentiation goes away, judgment goes away, values go away.

4)      So the question is  - was there a problem at all? Was there anything to be fixed? And is there any need to remain dissatisfied because we can’t control situation or us? Was our assumption wrong – about controlling? Maybe it was.

5)      I am also skeptical about the contemporary need or compulsion so to say, to verbalize whatever one is thinking. I believe that creates disturbance of the mind and gets us more attached to constructs of ego. Of course, denial of the ego is also not the solution. Confirmation or denial or critical thought or relative thought – any of the above are not the solutions to problems in life. There is no problem of any kind at all. Observation is what is required. That’s it. Perhaps observation means being in love and just acting naturally. Why to talk so much? Do it!

Observe

What I am realizing in recent times, that we avoid people because it somehow creates those thoughts that we do not wish to face. We avoid circumstances that generate disturbing thoughts. People, circumstances, situations – all are neutral – all are embedded in the phenomenon of space-force - manifestation. We exist as imagination mechanisms. If a thought cannot be digested, we fear it, as it affects us – we are fully aware of its effect on us.  WE believe that we are thoughts, and hence we experience whatever we think – absolutely whatever. We need to see and observe what this is all about. Why do we fear and what exactly do we fear? What is fear? Can we deconstruct this term or an experience? It takes years to understand the depth of our thoughts, our numerous chains and linkages that thoughts create – the ripples that thoughts generate and how they get formed. We need not run away, for we can’t run away from tendencies of imaginations. We may question our own imaginations, to make it evolve, to make comprehensive, to generate empathy, but the imagination will not stop. Imagination, therefore will have degrees of attachment, ego, intellect and feelings. Imagination will mean ‘you’ and ‘me’ and the mixing or separation of these two constructs. Hence, imagination is also about dilemmas and making choices. Imagination will also mean to ponder on issues of existence and probably realize important things in life. Imagination is also about behavior, activities, the choices we make and the consequences we have to face. Imagination will also mean personal interpretation of my life and its connection to universal values. Imagination will also mean a state of consciousness where the ideas or constructs of ‘we’ or ‘you’ or ‘they’ exist. Imagination will also mean desires and the urge to act on them and the restraint we chose to exercise. Imagination will also mean our body and mind. Hence, imagination is all about construct of a reality and deconstructing to reveal the fluidity of the same.

We may bow to this phenomenon of thoughts, for it is only with humility and tenderness that the path of freedom may be revealed to us.

If we know that...

I don’t think that philosophizing anything helps beyond certain extent. Once we know that we are a process of manifestation and this keeps continuing forever and that we may develop our ability to look beyond our limited view of mind and body, then why justify anything to others? It is our journey, our decision, our consequences and our review. It is we who benefit or get harmed. If we know that we need to concentrate and dwell on good thoughts then it is our consistence that will matter in the end. If we know that concentration is the only remedy for a wavering mind, then we should begin somewhere as soon as possible. If we know that meditation helps us to see ourselves without placing any judgment, then we should do it right away. If we know that exercise regular routine and good food and good company are extremely important in life, then we need to maintain these aspects in life. If we know that too much talking and too much focusing on problems is not the solution for peace, then why stick to it? If we know what needs to be done, why should we wait for that perfect moment to begin?

Now is the only reality.