If you listen or read many spiritual teachings or traditions these days and a few things are often discussed:
- Try to quiet your mind and not believe your thoughts
- Once you achieve a quiet mind and stop believing your thoughts, you will be free and be able to see who you really are underneath those thoughts vs. who you thought you were
Of course, people all over then try to sit down and meditate and find it extremely difficult to get past the first instruction. Why? Simply because they believe that their thoughts are too important to ignore and not believe.
You have thousands of thoughts that pass through your consciousness each day. Most of them relate to “me” or “I” and the things that “me” or “I” are concerned about, need to do, or regret having done. Even if at first a thought seems to have nothing to do with you personally – perhaps it’s a thought about an issue in world politics – sooner or later, you’ll find the thoughts circling round and round like scavenger birds over freshly dead meat until at last the thoughts start becoming personal again. A thought that started in your head as “Isn’t what’s happening in the news right now so interesting” soon becomes, “I wonder how that could affect me?” The process is very subtle, but very consistent – most thoughts in your head eventually relate to the “me” identity inside your head.
There’s one other interesting thing to note about the thoughts that swim around in your head. Most thoughts throughout your day that relate to “me” or “I” tend to lean on the fearful side versus the peaceful side of things. Let’s be honest, how much of your day is spent thinking about things that bring you nothing but calmness versus spent thinking about things that are of concern to you in one way or another? Of concern to “me” and “I?” Even the simple thought, “I need to remember to pay the cell phone bill tomorrow” is a thought with subtle urgency underneath it. You know, though you may not consciously think it at the time, that if you don’t pay your cell phone bill, your mobile carrier is going to charge you a late fee and you don’t want that – in fact, there’s a hint of fear in such a consequence.
Let’s go down that ladder step by step:
- If I don’t pay my cell phone bill I will get a late fee
- If I get a late fee I will have less money
- If I begin to make this a habit and incur many late fees, I will start going down the road of a bad financial state
- If my finances are in bad shape, it will begin to affect my credit
- If my credit is in trouble, I won’t be able to buy or rent the things I need such as a car to get to work
- If I don’t have a car to get to work, I will be fired
- If I’m fired, I’ll have no money to pay the rent/mortgage and I’ll be kicked out by the bank/landlord
- If I’m kicked out I will have to go live on the street without food or shelter
- [until finally] . . . without food or shelter, I will die
The purpose here to show how a small unassuming thought that seems to be quite harmless can actually point to complete an utter dread – a deep sense of stress. Most of all, it shows how a small insignificant appearing thought, can actually be enormously significant to your subconscious.
Notice too how all of those thoughts included the word “I.” So when a thought crosses your mind like, “I need to pay the phone bill,” you can’t help but take this simple and quick thought very seriously – the message this thought is telling you is that this thought is an extremely important thought to think about and should not be discarded or discounted.
Thus we can start to see how thoughts justify themselves as being too important to ignore by utilizing the emotion of fear. Genetically we have it still built into us to pay attention to fear – this is mostly for survival and avoidance of certain dangers such as predators. We are built to listen and respond to fear because in many cases, fear is a helpful tool to let us know that our survival might be in danger. Of course, as we have become a more civilized species and interdependent upon each other for survival and getting our physical needs met is much easier than it used to be, situations where our lives are really in physical danger are less and less frequent. Nonetheless, the mechanism still remains and fearful thoughts are rampant in the consciousness.
What’s the point of all this? So what if thoughts, fears, are constantly justifying their existence? Of course, I could say that the point is that when you realize this, you stop taking these fears so seriously and live a more pleasant life. Yet that’s not my point. It’s not just about living a life with less fear; it’s about sensing “something” on an even deeper level. Fearful thoughts keep your consciousness so busy and occupied that you have no time for anything else besides constant worry and concern – a total waste of energy, a waste of your precious attention. By distracting your attention with fear 24 hour hours a day, 7 days a week, you cannot be aware of your true nature, your true essence underneath. Most importantly, fearful thoughts always point you toward re-enforcing the concept of “me” or “I.” If there is no “I,” if the self does not exist, then what is there to fear really? The ego, which is nothing more than a movement towards and away from things it desires is an illusion that rests upon the notion that I exist and that I am important. Fear is the most effective tool for keeping the belief in self alive and thus all fears keep the attention within focused on me: “what’s going to happen to me??”
Underneath all thoughts, fears and desires of the future lies nothing/something/everything, and it has nothing to do with I or me. In ancient Judaism it was understood that this essence underneath the world of form could never be spoken, which eventually turned into “should never be spoken” (a tradition that extended into Christianity) and yet because words are needed to describe it, YHWY or Yahweh, was the name attributed to it. YHWY or God cannot be spoken, not because it is dangerous to or will anger God, but because words cannot describe God. This essence underneath your thoughts is your true nature, and while it cannot be described or spoken of by the mind, it is always felt. It is always there, it is the essence of everything, the space that gives rise to everything that you can sense and everything that you cannot. It is the source.
“If you don’t realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.” Tao Te Ching
Beware of fear. Watch how the mind uses fear to hook your attention as much as possible and how it continues to prove to you that whatever the object of fear is, it is imperative that you give your utmost attention to it. If you agree and allow the mind to mesmerize your attention with one fearful thing after the next, you will never “realize where you come from” but will stay trapped in an endless cycle of suffering. When all is said and done, realizing where you come from is infinitely more important that all the fears of the world put together. It’s the only thing that really matters.
