UN-GRASP FROM THOUGHTS
Spaciousness of mind
Thoughts are nearly continuous. It seems like a constant stream that never stops from the moment we arise to the moment we fall asleep. Thoughts seem to be always present, and our reprieve from them short in duration, if at all. Many people are not aware of how much thoughts consume their mind. Since being consumed in and with our thoughts is such a normal state of being for most people, it doesn’t dawn on us that it could or would be any other way. Some other people are well aware of their thoughts, yet feel all tangled up inside them. This tangling, grappling or fixation on our thoughts feels like something we can’t escape and which we must continue to focus on ad nauseam. This all consuming consumption with thoughts makes it hard for us to feel rested, relaxed or be present in our day to day, moment to moment existing.
What are thoughts? Thoughts are just patterns of energy that contain information. The information they contain is based on our beliefs or perspectives of what is. We often merge with our thoughts, meaning we define ourselves as or with the them, rather than seeing ourselves as the awareness of thoughts. We also think that our thoughts are solid and factual. Our conviction in our thoughts makes them seem right, real and true, when really they are just vibrating patterns of atoms and molecules that can change their configuration in any moment based on however it is we are perceiving what it is that we are. So thoughts are malleable, but they take their cue from us. If we are not malleable then our thoughts will be rigid and inflexible too.
What might happen if we had a few moments without fusing onto our thoughts? For some this is completely foreign, so foreign that it will feel uncomfortable. To be in the spaciousness of mind, rather than the mind filled with thoughts, can create a feeling of instability or too much openness. The mind wants to grasp onto something, anything, in order to give it a sense of known, stable, familiarness. Some people fear what they might find in the spaciousness of an open mind. Perhaps they feel like nothing is there and associate that with nonexistence, purposelessness, or not mattering. Others fear that some dark inner monster lives in that space, which just equates to something they don’t want to feel, residing in that empty open space. Yet the only “thing” that is there, which is not a thing at all, is pure being, pure existing, pure you. Nothing more and nothing less. It is full and complete beingness without content or form. It is your most natural, primordial self. If you stay with yourself long enough here, the bliss of yourself will overwhelm your awareness.
LETTING WHAT IS BE
Give in over & over & over
You might wonder how you come to touch, know and stabilize in this “place” of yourself, rested in your being and your existence, as your conscious experience. Many touch this peaceful, blissful state of being, but most don’t live from here. Rather we go to a retreat, take a vacation, go to a yoga class, meditate, go out into nature or the like, in order to get our taste. To help us connect and remember ourselves. Yet ourself never goes anywhere. Wherever we are, our self is. We don’t need to do or go anywhere in order to reconnect and remember. We can always connect, but we don’t always exercise that power to do so. Why not? Because we get fixated on a thought, or two thoughts, or three thoughts, or thoughts all day long. Those thoughts take up the space of ourselves, and ourself then becomes harder and harder to feel, see and hear. We begin to feel disconnected and can’t figure out how we arrived here again, disconnected, frustrated and feeling powerless.
There are many different tools and techniques that have been utilized over the years to stabilize the mind and find that open, spacious, sky like quality of not being fixated on thoughts. In fact that is the traditional purpose of things like meditation and yoga, but often people just sit or move quietly for some duration of time, while still being looped in their thoughts. What does it really take to ungrasp from the thoughts that run through our mind? The first thing is that you have to know that you are grasping. Again so many people are, in a way fused with their thoughts, in such a manner that they don’t even realize that there is an option to release the thought or move their awareness off of it. Once people are aware of the fact that they are holding onto a thought, or many thoughts, they often say, “I want to let it go, but how do I do it? I see that I’m fixated, but I don’t know how to release it.” The easiest answer is to just shift your awareness onto something else, or even better, onto the simple awareness of being itself. The reason we don’t do that very simple thing is because we have some kind of charge with our thought that we are looping in. We actually want to hold onto it because we think we will get something out of it if we do. Perhaps we believe the outcome we want to happen will happen if we keep thinking about whatever it is we are thinking. Maybe we believe something bad will happen if we stop thinking the thought. Perhaps we want justification, validation, to prove our rightness/wrongness to ourselves, and on and on, so we grasp. Whatever thought(s) we hold onto then filter our experience and keep us in or out of our present moment.
In order to neutralize the charge of your thoughts, and make them easier to let go, you can do this one other very simple thing, and it’s this. Let everything be as it. Over and over and over again, whatever you are perceiving, let it be as it is. Give in to what is. Surrender to what is. Don’t try to change or fix anything. Do this over and over and over again. Not just once, but several times a day or even in an hour, until you begin to notice some moments of spaciousness where there is thoughtless awareness. Where you just are, in the openness of your mind, rather than lost in thought. Here is where you reside. This is the connection you seek when you feel disconnected. In returning here over and over and over again you will eventually stably rest in yourself, and that peaceful, bliss of yourself will be the foundation from where you experience your life.
Dr. Amanda Love, Network Spinal Chiropractor, Boulder, Colorado
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