The Cloud Cover of Mind

What stands between you [self] ...and the joy of Life...is mind.
Michael Singer

We are getting that aren't we?  What prevents us from truly knowing Self and experiencing the peace that is our home...is our mind.  Michael Singer puts it this way: Underneath is who we really are...peace, joy, eternal essence....spirit.  Above that is our consciousness, this little self we are aware of....and in between is mind.  What prevents us from living in that place of our unchanging joy is our mind.  Mind is an obstacle on our path to experiencing home...a veil over home that prevents us from seeing it.

Isn't it the world that is between us and happiness?

Most of us would say that is a bunch of bull *&^%.  It is the world that stands between us and joy, between the lives we are experiencing now and the lives we want to be experiencing.  Life just keeps handing us one "problem", one "awful" circumstance, one "wrong", one "bad" event,  after another. That is why we may be unhappy, depressed, burned out.  If life gives us what we  want, however, we are happy.  Therefore...it is the world , not the mind that is responsible for our happiness and most importantly...for our lack of.

So let's look at that.   Maybe in order to be happy I believe I  have to have a certain job that is stress free.  I have to have a partner who constantly confirms my lovability.  I have to drive a certain car and have a certain income. If I get all those things...I am happy.  My world becomes brighter and I experience some semblance of joy. The world then, is believed to be the giver of this state....the provider of my joy. 

If on the other hand I can't seem to get those things or they are taken away by the world... I lose my partner or my job.  I wreck my car or lose all my money on the market...then it was the world that stood between me and a joyful life...between me and happiness. It didn't give me what I needed to be happy.

If the world gives me what I want, I seem to be happy.  When it doesn't, I am depressed.  So it is easy to see why we believe the world is making us happy or unhappy...the world that prevents us from experiencing joy.

Looking at this mixed up perception a little closer

Singer tells us we need to examine this a little closer. The joy of Life is far greater than the temporary pleasure we receive from the gaining of things or preconceived "pleasant' circumstances.  The joy of Life is permanent and unchanging.  It doesn't fluctuate or go away.  It is always there ready to be received underneath all the noise this world makes. It is not "of this world" as we know it...so it therefore can not be effected by it. It is like the sun...always shining brilliantly, never moving, there even when we cannot see it or feel it. It just "seems" to be here one moment, gone the next; rising and setting when in actuality it is just there.

The world doesn't stand between what we consciously experience and It...it can't.  What stands between our joy and our awareness of It is the mind...with all its preconceived ideas about what it "wants' from life, its conditioning, it's judgments about what is good to have and what is bad. Our thinking is like a dark heavy cloud cover between us and "experiencing" the joy that is always there. The more negative the thinking, the darker the cloud cover....the less joy we feel in Life. It does not mean the joy isn't there...we just cannot experience It because of the cloud cover of thinking.

The Mental Cloud Cover Thickens and Thins

But sometimes it thins and we feel joy?

This mental cloud cover is constantly fluctuating...thinning out or becoming thicker.  Thoughts are just moving energy forms that come and go.  When Life lines up perfectly and coincidentally matches what our mind thinks it needs in order to be happy   with a break in the cloud cover ( a break in thinking) we assume we are happy because we got what the mind wanted!  But the reason for any joy we may feel...any peace, love, and happiness ...has to do with a thinning of mind...a thinner of the cloud cover so Spirit could shine through...not with what the world handed us.

We can't control what Life gives us.  We can spend all our energy trying to get the things we think will make us happy from the world but we will never be completely successful.  We can put all our energy into trying to control Life so it gives us what the mind tells us it wants and needs to be happy but we will just burn ourselves out trying.  We do not have to fix the world...we need to fix our minds.

It is mind that creates a barrier between us and the joy that is waiting for us. ...not the world. It is the mind that squeezes so hard on our life energy. A release of that hold that will give us freedom to enjoy living.  If we know it is the mind that is the problem we are on our way to Joy.

 If we learn to get beyond our thinking...we will learn to accept and even appreciate anything the world throws at us.  We will constantly feel the sun shining on us regardless of circumstance and we will experience the true joy of living which is not determined by whether or not the mind gets what it wants.  The joy will come from simply living what is.

All is well!



Michael Singer ( July 2018) Michael Singer: Freedom from Mind- vol2: The Untethered Soul Lectures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVewPl9fzY8