Drift Back

 Mana eva manusyanam karanam bandha moksayoh

Sanskrit saying

Say what?

As  the mind, so the person.  Bondage and liberation are in your own mind. 

Still don't know what you are talking about, crazy lady. 

Do you see yourself as a slave to life circumstance, to belief systems, emotions and all phenomena in front of you? If you see yourself as bound, you will be bound and your life will reflect that.  If you see yourself as free, you are free and your life will reflect that. Freedom and bondage take place in the mind...nowhere else. Things outside have no effect. They are just passing phenomenon coming in and going out of our awareness.   Only our focus of attention  and our attitude will determine how free we are. 

We will come to realize this after we take on the task of observing our minds,  We will see just how problematic they are and how much trouble they cause for us.  We will see how they make no sense and really do not know what they are talking about but there they are inside us telling us this and telling us that.  And we listen.  This is what keeps us in this dungeon of an inner world.  Inside this dungeon we are the "me"...a flimsy, veil of pseudo protection that is nothing more than an idea or self concept. We spend our imprisonment doing whatever we can to protect this "me", to make it more real, secure and solid to no avail.  "Me" can be blown over with a puff of air...yet there we are struggling, protecting, defending, grasping, clinging, averting...full of restlessness and worry,  and doubt, trying to make this "me" something it isn't...real and solid. 

Huh?

Will ask you another question: 

What seat are you sitting in right now as you watch the world unfold in front of you?  The seat of being or the seat of drama? The seat of peace or the seat of disturbance?  (Michael Singer) The seat of wisdom and clarity or the seat of illusion and confusion?Are you, in other words, living in your spiritual being or living in your human being?  Are you sitting back far enough to observe not only what is going on in front of you but what is going on behind you? Or are you so close to the world's stage , you believe you are a character in that drama? 

Still not getting it

Are you suffering right now because of what is happening around you and in you?  If so, you are too close. Would you like to stop suffering?  Would you like to feel peace and joy and even ecstasy all the time  instead ? 

Yeah but how?

Trade seats.  Instead of sitting so close to the  stage that you can't help but be caught up in the drama, take the seat of observer instead. Sit back in the seat of being, of Self. There is no drama there, no suffering, no disturbance. There is just a steady flow of peace, wisdom, clarity.  You can see it all but from a distance.  What's more it doesn't bother you.  It is just something you are allowing into your awareness and something you watch leave your awareness.  Back there you are free.

What action is required?

Observe! Simply observe and notice what your mind is doing...holding it accountable. See how no matter how much you attempt to manipulate the play or the characters or the scene or the atmosphere...Life just keeps doing what it is doing and you keep suffering. Not becasue of what is going on up there but because you not letting it go.  You insist on being so close to it, a part of it when it really ahs nothing to do with you. You are stuffing it all inside as if it was a drama put on just for you. You are believing what is happening and what the mind is telling you is happening.  You are allowing all that drama to hit your stuff and you are following the mind's instructions on how to make that not happen when the mind doesn't have a clue what it is talking about. The more you listen to the mind, the more you sit where you are sitting, the crazier and more disturbed it all gets inside. 

Realize it is not where you want to be.  You don't want to keep suffering...you want more. You don't have to keep hanging out in that part of your being

Want out! Do you want out?

Either you want out or you don't. If you don't you won't. 

Wanting to be in the seat of consciousness/being...is the most important and sometimes only step needed, Michael Singer teaches. If we have  a sincere desire and willingness we are fifty percent there. If you find your insides a mess right now because of all that is going on up on the stage, and becasue of everything the mind is telling you to do or not do "out there" in order to make it okay "in here" you are probably getting ready to ask for a seat change. You want it. Once you want it you are halfway there. 

Decide to ignore the mind! Singer also teaches that a major component of the spiritual path is to stop buying into the advice the mind is giving us when it tells us what we need to fix, grab, push away or control "out there" to make it better "in here." We cannot stop it from chirping away and going on with all its mixed up advice but we have to learn, at some point in our lives, just how misleading that advice is. This is not as easy as it sounds.  We are so conditioned by our habitual tendencies to follow the mind's advice, to listen and to believe it. And  mind is so convincing in its message that the drama being played in front of us is all about us.  We will find ourselves pulled back in again and again.  We just need to stop listening. 

Go nowhere!  We really do not need to get up and move.  We just need to lean  back into the space that has always been there.  We need to drift back away from what is going on in front of us, and into who we are....the witness, the Observer, that is seperate from the craziness inside. 

Drift back into the center of who you are.

Spirituality is not something you do, it is who you are. Just permit it to be. 

Watch! You can still observe what is going on in front of you from that back seat.  Be the watcher instead of what is being watched. 

Let the  "me" go. Be willing to die in order to be reborn

 Use life for the purpose it was meant for.  Instead of fighting and struggling to change what is in front of you, use every opportunity to get rid of me, to be free.  When life circumstances are not to your liking...use that. When  the  samskaras get triggered...use that. Resist nothing.  Use it all for your liberation. Welcome and throw the remains of me out there so  you can be set free. 

Only one thing your life is about and that is to get out. Use everything around you as a means to your liberation. 

Be Who You Are. You are consciousness. You are the Witness. And when we sit in the seat of the witness a whole other universe appears for the consciousness to relate to.

Watch as consciousness shifts back to Self and you become free.

All is well! 

Michael Singer/ Temple of the Universe.(January 16,  2023) A Shift In Consciousness.https://tou.org/talk-archive/

Satchididananda (2011) Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Integral Yoga Publications