Lesson Two: The Trick to Getting Beyond Thought

What we must try to be, of course, is ourselves and wholeheartedly. We must find out who we really are and what we really want.
Nelson Boswell (https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/nelson_boswell)

So in order to discover who we really are we need to get beyond thought to truth.

What do you mean we need to get beyond thought? Isn't that impossible?

Getting beyond thought is not as it seems.  I am not saying that we set out on a mission impossible.  I am just saying we need to get beyond our "attachment' to thought.  It is our attachment, our identifying our sense of self with thought that is the problem...not the thinking itself.  Thoughts are just little blurs of words, images and ideas that pass through  our consciousness...there is nothing to them unless we give them more meaning than they deserve.

The problem is that so many of us are stuck up in our heads, glued to the flickering screens of our psyches as the 60,000 thoughts a day are shown.  We watch so intently as the same story lines, dramas and characterizations are played over and over again mesmerizing us with their compelling performance under ego's expert direction.  We see ourselves up there on that mental screen and we come to believe that is who we are. We identify ourselves more with a thought...a character played out in some past or future story we are constantly creating...than with the person sitting and watching the movie at that present moment. So we are confused. 

We have forgotten ourselves. We have become attached to  and identified with  an image rather than realizing who we truly are.  What we are watching  is all just an illusion. We observe these images of ourselves doing, loving, losing, winning but we can't truly "experience" what they experience because it is just an image.  As compelling as the movie is...it is not real.  And we are not characters in it. We are simply  observers of it.  Who we really are is the observer of it in this moment.

Why do we get so lost in our heads?

The answer to that is simple.  Like any good director ego tricks us into getting lost in the world and characters it creates for us on our mental screens by making a really, really good movie. We are pulled into the story and characters. As long as we are watching ego's drama, however, we are not living the observers life.  As a character image we are two-dimensional and we see only the limitations of a movie with a beginning and an unpredictable end. We are trapped. We are at the mercy of ego's cuts and ego's determined direction.

Huh?  So what do we do about that?

The trick to getting beyond thought is to see thought as nothing more than a movie you are watching.We have to come back to where we are, feel the seat beneath our butts and the breath in our chests. We need to say no to ego,  take our eyes away from the screen, close them for a bit and reconnect with the being that was observing.  Be one with that observer because that is who we are. Not the character out there be she heroine or victim; he beauty or beast....but the being with the beating heart watching right here, right now. This is who we are beyond thought.

Don't Beat Yourself Up!

Don't beat yourself up for watching it. Most of us spend our entire lives watching these mental movies about who and what we are.  Man it is hard not to.  Ego is one hell of a director and made you the star of one exciting, drama filled story! Who wouldn't want to watch themselves in such a movie?  So don't beat yourself up for watching...simply be aware that you are.  That's all.  Be aware that you are watching a movie about your life but it is just fiction. You can keep watching if you want to.  That's your choice.  But if you want reality, want truth...than you have to be willing to take your eyes from the screen and put your attention back into the experience of the observer: You!

All is well in my world.