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A Quiet Mind

2-9-11

Here is my favorite, the statement that I most want to be true for me all the time. I have a quiet mind. I am at peace. I am certain. I am joyous. When I think of these blessings, I see a mind that has become quiet because I have stopped giving its endless parade of nonsense thoughts my attention. Into this mind comes occasional directions on where to go, what to do, who to see and what to say to them. Otherwise it is this lovely quiet place.

One of the surprises of this discipline is learning that the reason it has been so hard to quiet the mind is because I secretly enjoyed all its little dramas. As I finally began to achieve some degree of success I saw panic thoughts. I saw fear of boredom. Who would keep me company? What would I do without thoughts to entertain and occupy me?

I read a lot. I read while I eat, while I wait for someone, when I am too tired to write, as I go to sleep. I drive all day as part of my job and I listen to books constantly. Once recently I was on my way to the store and reached for the cd controls. I realized I didn’t have anything to listen to. It was only a short drive so no biggee. I laughed at myself as I reached for the dial several times on that short drive. I have taught myself I need to be entertained by ego stories all the time.

So while I have finally gotten in touch with the desire for a quiet mind, I still had a lot of resistance to it. I was also afraid of a quiet mind. While listening to The Teachings of the Inner Ramana I heard something that further explained my resistance to the quiet mind. The constant thinking is my “I” self, my separate ego identity asserting itself. I would stop thinking long enough to become aware of what thoughts had been drifting in and out of my mind, and sure enough, it was I this and I that. I want some ice cream. I don’t like that person. I think I would prefer to stay at a different hotel tonight.

Yesterday, as this happened, I would stop myself from the endless loop of mindless thoughts, notice that it was the ego self reasserting its authority, and choose differently by asking, “What would You have me do?” It was an uphill battle. I have given ego free reign for too long to make this an easy change, but it is simple, and will inevitably be successful. I am blessed as a Son of God. I am very powerful.

The mind is my creation as is the ego identity.  I am not subservient to it, only confused about what I want. It may not seem important to realize that I am using the mind to choose what I want for supper and to stop and ask, “What would You have me eat?” It may even sound silly. Why would the Holy Spirit care what I eat? But it is another step in choosing to loosen the “I” identity.

I am blessed as the Son of God. I am at peace. I visualize myself in the eye of the hurricane. All around me chaos appears, but in my Self there is only calm certainty. I know who I am. I am that I am. Nothing that seems to happen in our story of separation can change that. I am still as I was created. Peace is my nature. Certainty is my nature. The winds of fortune shift and change and blow all around me but I stand in quiet curiosity, observing but unmoved.

I am blessed as the Son of God. I am joyous. I have always thought of awakening as very serious business. It is what I want, and while it is important, in fact, all that is important, I am beginning to realize it does not have to be serious. I am beginning to realize what a strange idea it is that awakening to the only thing that is true requires my serious concentration; that awakening is such a fragile state that laughter and fun would shatter it. I don’t know where I got that attitude, but I see that I was mistaking seriousness for firm intention. I am now firmly intent on joy.

Again, I have been surprised to discover a resistance to even this change. You would think that the idea of joy as a state of being would be so attractive that I would jump right on it. But the ego doesn’t seem all that attracted to joy. I will be feeling joy, joy without a story attached, just joy bubbling up in me and the ego will start throwing thoughts at me designed to pull me back to its reality. I will think of something worrisome or sad or potentially dangerous.

I have also discovered that joy is not really joy if it is part of a story. I can think of something happy that happened to me, and feel good about it, but that is not joy. Joy doesn’t depend on circumstances. So I can’t think joy into being. The ego doesn’t like this because it is something out of its “domain.” Joy just is, and to experience it I seem to only need to want it, and to not allow myself to choose something else instead. I speak of this in only the most uncertain terms because I am on new ground here. But, oh my, what glorious ground this is!

Holy Spirit: Indeed you are blessed as a Son of God! I encourage you to choose joy often. There will be so many opportunities all day long to choose God. When you smile, Heaven smiles with you.

Me: What a wonderful lesson. Thank You so much. I am willing to be very aware of those opportunities. I am so full of gratitude this morning, Holy Spirit. Yesterday I began to feel anxious by the end of the day. It seemed I was noticing the same thoughts all day long. I began to feel as if I were having no effect on the mind. But now I feel energized and ready to begin again.

Holy Spirit: Did you notice that even as you rose from sleep that the thinking mind was right there beginning its process of establishing dominance in the mind? Its first thought was one of deciding if you should get up at that moment or go back to sleep.

Me: Yes, I noticed that. I noticed the back and forth play as thoughts of sleep vs what needs to be done today, how I have felt in the past when I got up early vs how I felt when I slept late and didn’t get as much done as I thought I should. This opened a whole new line of thought creating doubt and uncertainty, and it began to feel confusing and discouraging. All of this in just a moment as I lay there. I never noticed before how burdensome all of this thinking is. I am encouraged, though, because I deliberately, and without thinking, asked what You would have me do.

Holy Spirit: I was hoping you noticed that. The ego judged the degree of your success yesterday based on its own interpretations. It cannot know if you succeeded because it doesn’t know what anything is for. After only a single day of concentrated effort on your part, you have shifted the ego dynamic. You began the day listening to the mind, and very quickly chose to give your attention to Me instead.

Today when the mind seems filled with discouraging thoughts, just look at them. Is that what you want to believe? Looking with belief is suffering. It is not necessary or helpful. Look, instead, with mild curiosity. Then ask Me for My thoughts instead.

© 2011, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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If Guilt is Hell

2-8-11
This morning may be the first time ever that I answered, without hesitation or thought, the question, “If guilt is hell, what is its opposite?” The word that came into my awareness unbidden by the ego thinking mind was innocence. I am not guilty because I am innocent. You are not guilty because you are innocent. Innocence is Heaven. As I stand on that firm ground, that unchanging, unshifting ground, everything else falls gently into place.

I notice a thought in the mind that says I should have remembered my brother’s birthday. I feel guilt arise from believing and entertaining that thought. My obvious interest in guilty thoughts invites more of them into my mind and soon I am awash in guilt. It all happens very quickly, so quickly that it seems to be happening to me, rather than by me.

Recently, my vigilant practice has lifted me from those shifting sands and placed me on firmer ground. I have been using the mantra, “I am that I am.” And sometimes, “I am that I am, and I am nothing else.” I use the mantra as a constant reminder of my truth. I use it to break the cycle of guilty thinking. This morning I realize that this mantra is saying the same thing as today’s lesson. My holiness is my salvation. Both are excellent mantras with the same meaning. So is, “I am as God created me.” These words all remind me that I am not guilty, I am innocent.

Standing on this firm ground of innocence, when the thought appears that I should have remembered my brother’s birthday, I notice it and allow it to leave my mind. I do not give it my attention because I am not interested in entertaining guilt. I am not as enamored of guilt as I once was. I have not given it up completely, but I am more interested in letting it go than I am in feeding it with my faith. It has begun to starve from lack of attention.

As I continue this practice (which has been greatly helped by listening to the Inner Ramana Teachings as I drive all day in my job, or work around the house on weekends) something very interesting and wonderful is happening. I have begun to laugh at the idea of listening to the mind. I will be experiencing a perfect moment. Absolutely everything is perfect. There is nothing in that moment to complain about, worry about, or regret. The ego mind will offer me an objection; dredge up a memory from the past of an error that feels shameful, or, if I am not interested in those, it will invent some worry about the future.

If I give this ridiculous parade of thoughts my attention and concern the perfection of the moment dissolves into pain, sorrow, anger, fear; actually it doesn’t matter which of these because they are all the same. They are different forms of the same effect. Guilt has appeared as a thought in the mind and if embraced as true, its effect is lack of peace. The story doesn’t matter. The form of the effect doesn’t matter. Lack of peace is lack of peace.

The funny part, the part that makes me laugh is that I have begun to see the absurdity of believing my thoughts. I have to ask myself why on earth I ever gave these thoughts credence. As I think about it I laugh out loud! In the past the ego would say, “Here’s a reason to feel guilty.” And I would dutifully respond, “Oh yes, I see. Give me another memory to reinforce that guilt.”

I didn’t use those words, of course. After all, that wouldn’t be part of the game I play with the ego. In order to sustain the existence of the ego I have to pretend that I don’t know what is going on. But now that I have chosen to break that incredibly painful and destructive cycle and to call the ego on its game, I am having a lot of trouble taking it seriously. Thus I am going around laughing like a loon at unexpected moments.

I am looking forward to another day of watching the ego dissolve in my laughter. My visual is of the wicked witch of the west melting as Dorothy pours water on her. “Oh nooo!” In the story, the witch was terrifying and dangerous to Dorothy, and yet, in the end she was of such little substance that she could be dissolved by simple water. Guilt is much the same, it seems. It dissolves in the face of a simple mantra, and a gleeful laugh.

© 2011, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

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