To understand oneself is to be aware of every thought and feeling without condemnation. When you condemn, you put a stop to your feelings and thoughts;but if you do not condemn, justify, or resist, then the content of your thought will reveal itself. Experiment and you will see.
J. Krishnamurti
The Seat
Krishnamurti , a brilliant Indian philosopher, was big on encouraging everyone he spoke to, to maintain the seat of objective observation. By that he wanted us to remain centered and objective as we did the most spiritual and the most practical well being seeking thing we could ever do...observe our minds. This is what all the great masters tell us to do, do they not? If we want liberation from our suffering, we need to go to the source of that suffering and observe what is going on in there and then determine the roots of it. This mission we may or may not be on to "awaken" is not about stopping our thinking...we couldn't do that if we tried. It is just about understanding Self. If we want to understand Self or the No-self (if thinking in Buddhist terms) we need to understand all that is blocking the true flow of Self, of Shakti or Chi, of Life energy, through us which is often our thinking. We need to understand what is causing the disturbance. So we take our seat as the objective observer and we observe the mind.
Lost in Thought or Feeling?
Now, we cannot observe the mind if we are lost in the mind. If we are so carried away by the story the mind is telling, if we see ourselves as characters in that story, we cannot "observe" it "objectively" without condemnation, justification or resistance, can we? If you get so caught up in thinking, in the disturbance and distraction the busy mind offers, you lose awareness that you are thinking. If you lose awareness of thinking, you can not observe your thinking. (That goes for feeling too , of course, and for all the mental modifications as Patanjali referred to them as or the "mental formations" as the Buddha referred to them.)
Being Aware You Are Thinking
The first step is always in coming to the realization that we were lost in thought or reactivity ( actually acting upon our thinking). "Oh my...I was really getting carried away there, thinking about that or doing that becasue I was feeling that or thinking about that." As soon as we have caught ourselves thinking we are the observer. We have stepped away from the thought stream and are now on the shore watching what is going on in it.
The Stream
Michael Singer in his podcast ( linked below) gives us this analogy. Imagine your Life was this amazing stream going from point A to the infinite Ocean...If we look at this as a spiritual path, without disturbance it will flow naturally and freely toward the Ocean...the Source of All...God. If we look at it as a psychology or wellness path, without disturbance our minds will always flow in the direction of peace, joy, happiness and Love. But for most of us there is so much disturbance that getting to God, or peace seems almost impossible.
What is causing the disturbance?
Singer gets us to imagine there are big rocks in this stream...the rocks block the flow, creating currents and eddies leading to disturbance. Now we can get so attracted to these rocks and this disturbance because it is all so big, noisy, loud and demanding, we can get sucked right in. If fall into the thought stream, and if we are fighting to survive in that stream, we are not in the seat of objective observation, in our calm center observing it. We are likely condemning it and resisting it big time, right? The thing is we need to get out of that stream, to separate ourselves from the pull of the current. And once out on shore we want to do our best to stay there...to maintain the seat of the objective observer.
What are these rocks that we are so attracted to that cause disturbance?
Those rocks are our thoughts, our beliefs, our feelings, our emotions, and our perceptions that we have stored inside us, that we cling to out of attachment and inadvertently out of our need to stuff down, suppress repress, avoid etc. . Our tendencies to push away that which we feel increases the disturbance and our tendency to cling to that which we feel will allow us to float calmly in this stream just aggravate the water. The thing is we don't want to float calmly in this stream...we want to be out of it observing it as it flows through us. We do not want to condemn anything either...to judge it as bad, or wrong or shouldn't be. When we do that we just increase the disturbance. Krishnamurti tells us that condemnation of our thought and feeling experience just make the rocks hide under the surface. They are still there causing great disturbance but we cannot see them. The Buddha would say that those rocks are our five hindrances: our desire, our aversion, our sloth and torpor, our worry and restlessness and our doubt.
What is the point, crazy lady?
Without these rocks there would be no disturbance. The only thing holding us back from experiencing the peace that is the natural state of mind...the only thing keeping us from experiencing God which is the natural state of any spiritual evolution... are these rocks, these mental modifications, these hindrances, this stored stuff. We cannot remove them, however, if we cannot see them. Until we are willing to look deeply into the mind as the source of our so called suffering, our steams will constantly be disturbed. And if we do get to the point we are able to observe each moment but we are doing so with judgement, condemnation for what Life has given us, with resistance to what is...and that includes these feelings and thoughts we have stored...we will never see clearly.
Release and relax, let go of condemnation and a need for things to be a certain way...and the rocks reveal themselves. We see clearly and can get to the root of our suffering.
Once the rocks are removed the stream goes back to its natural peaceful flow and we observe it as it flows through us and to the Source of all things. This is true healing. This is true freedom!
All is well!
Michael Singer Podcast (July, 2021 ) Doing the Real Work to Free Yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDp9I9qwjrQ
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