Who Are You?
You are not your thoughts.
Thoughts arise, live for a time, and subside, (and are replaced by other thoughts or actions)
You are not your emotions.
Emotions arise, live for a time, and subside. They are not sustainable long-term.
You are not your body.
The body arises (is conceived, incubated, born) lives for a time (grows, changes, ages) and subsides (dies).
You are eternal. Immortal. Pure consciousness at the level of being. Connected to all that is. You are a Spiritual Being having a physical experience.
All too often, we mistake our physical experience as the sum total total of our being, of our essence. We get lost & bogged down in the Avatar we've created to interact in the physical world, forgetting that we chose to play this game, forgetting that we are still connected to the "outside". Outside is the realm outside this Matrix, where our Higher Self has a bird's eye view of all the goings on, all the potential choices & outcomes.
We forget that by quieting our minds - useful but limited tools - we can connect to the much larger network. It is like trusting our PC to have all the answers, forgetting we can connect to the Internet and access knowledge that is billions of times more vast.
Quieting the mind - meditation - is connecting to the Internet. It is a practice of repeatedly reminding our thinker (mind) "shhh... quiet now. We're taking a little rest," as many times as it needs reminding. As the thinker raises more & more thoughts, wanting to serve the only function it knows, we continually remind it that it is time to be quiet, just for a spell. That it will be okay - it will still be able to serve its thinking purpose when we're finished. Thoughts will still arise, and we can acknowledge the thoughts, like acknowledging a little toddler who is fighting nap time, then let go of those thoughts and remind the thinker again, "shh, shh, now. It's okay. You can think again after the rest."
Be gentle with yourself; be gentle with that tool that is the mind. It only wants to help, and it truly thinks it is helping, even when it is racing, over-thinking, over-functioning. Thinking is what it knows how to do, and when it over-thinks, it's because regular thinking did not seem to solve whatever problem had arisen - which may very well have originated in thoughts themselves. And just as Albert Einstein is quoted to have said, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
Meditation is sometimes like calling for back up. Meditation is sometimes a welcome respite from the hectic "to-do" lists and worries about the day. Meditation is always a gift we can give ourselves. The stillness always exists within us - we always have access to it. And from the stillness, answers will come.
Trust yourself. Trust your Higher Self. Trust your body and your emotions as the barometers, the indicators of what is working and what is not working. Tune in. Listen. There, in the stillness, you will find the truth of you.
“Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.”
―
Thoughts arise, live for a time, and subside, (and are replaced by other thoughts or actions)
You are not your emotions.
Emotions arise, live for a time, and subside. They are not sustainable long-term.
You are not your body.
The body arises (is conceived, incubated, born) lives for a time (grows, changes, ages) and subsides (dies).
You are eternal. Immortal. Pure consciousness at the level of being. Connected to all that is. You are a Spiritual Being having a physical experience.
All too often, we mistake our physical experience as the sum total total of our being, of our essence. We get lost & bogged down in the Avatar we've created to interact in the physical world, forgetting that we chose to play this game, forgetting that we are still connected to the "outside". Outside is the realm outside this Matrix, where our Higher Self has a bird's eye view of all the goings on, all the potential choices & outcomes.
We forget that by quieting our minds - useful but limited tools - we can connect to the much larger network. It is like trusting our PC to have all the answers, forgetting we can connect to the Internet and access knowledge that is billions of times more vast.
Quieting the mind - meditation - is connecting to the Internet. It is a practice of repeatedly reminding our thinker (mind) "shhh... quiet now. We're taking a little rest," as many times as it needs reminding. As the thinker raises more & more thoughts, wanting to serve the only function it knows, we continually remind it that it is time to be quiet, just for a spell. That it will be okay - it will still be able to serve its thinking purpose when we're finished. Thoughts will still arise, and we can acknowledge the thoughts, like acknowledging a little toddler who is fighting nap time, then let go of those thoughts and remind the thinker again, "shh, shh, now. It's okay. You can think again after the rest."
Be gentle with yourself; be gentle with that tool that is the mind. It only wants to help, and it truly thinks it is helping, even when it is racing, over-thinking, over-functioning. Thinking is what it knows how to do, and when it over-thinks, it's because regular thinking did not seem to solve whatever problem had arisen - which may very well have originated in thoughts themselves. And just as Albert Einstein is quoted to have said, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
Meditation is sometimes like calling for back up. Meditation is sometimes a welcome respite from the hectic "to-do" lists and worries about the day. Meditation is always a gift we can give ourselves. The stillness always exists within us - we always have access to it. And from the stillness, answers will come.
Trust yourself. Trust your Higher Self. Trust your body and your emotions as the barometers, the indicators of what is working and what is not working. Tune in. Listen. There, in the stillness, you will find the truth of you.
“Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.”
―
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