Psychology attempts to solve the problems with the personality while spirituality tends to solve the problem of the personality.
"me"
These words came to me when I was meditating this morning.
Say What? You were thinking while you were mediating crazy lady? I thought meditating was all about stopping the mind from thinking?
Yes, I was thinking while I was meditating. I have been thinking probably a little more than usual during my meditation practices lately. My dharana practice (concentration on something other than thought) might be a little off but I am still meditating. The fact that I notice these thoughts emerge is an indication I am meditating. I have learned not to resist them and I have learned to reduce the amount of time I follow them off into a tangent...or if I do follow them off...I have learned to simply bring myself back again, and again, and again. I also notice that there is Something in me that is noticing these thoughts when I ask "Who is thinking this?" This is the deeper form of dhyana practice...consciousness concentrating on consciousness....awareness aware of awareness.
So, yes, I was thinking during meditation and no, meditation isn't about stopping the mind from thinking. We cannot stop the mind from doing what it does. Mind thinks. Meditation is about becoming aware that there is Something beyond the thinking and to remove our attention away from distracting thoughts...the object of consciousness...and to put it back on that which is thinking. It is about removing the light from the object it is shining on and realizing that we are the light that is doing the shining. As Michael Singer reminds us in the below podcast...mind is not really the problem, what we do with it is.
What has that got to do with the above quote, crazy lady?
Well, as I have said I am on a mission to better understand and explain how we need to dismantle the personality in order to go home to who we really are. The personality is very much linked to the personal mind. So many of us are distracted by the pull of this mind's drama...its thoughts and feelings, its stories and past history, what it has stored and stuffed that keeps getting triggered by "stimulus situations" ( life events)...that we tend not to see anything else. We are so focused on these objects of consciousness that we forget we are the consciousness that is staring at them. We believe we are the personal mind or personality. This is a collective belief. So much so we have come up with large fields of study that are designed to help this personality or personal mind to thrive. Psychology attempts to find ways to solve the personality's problems.
Spirituality, on the other hand, doesn't invest in the problems of the personality. It sees the personal mind or personality as the problem. It knows the only true freedom path that will bring us to sat chit ananda...our home state of consciousness ( eternal conscious bliss) is obtained by dismantling the personality.
Dismantling the personality?
Let me rephrase that. When I say "dismantle the personality" I should be stressing that this simply involves removing our conscious attachment from the personality. The personality itself is harmless to who we really are. Yet, it creates a filter -veil over our realization of who we really are-awareness itself. The more we are focusing on the drama of personal mind, personality, little me...the less likely we are to realize the Self that is actually the light that is doing the shining on this little me. We are using the amazing power of awareness and contracting and narrowing its power to shine down on this puny little entity we call "me" with all its never ending dramas, bringing our life energy down with it. We are not the thought object we are aware of ("me"and its preferences). We are the awareness that is aware of me, personal mind, or personality. We need to simply remove our focus from personality, then, back to that which is doing the shining. We need to detach from that which we are staring at and fall back into the Seat of consciousness. Meditation is one thing that can help us do that. Anything that helps us do that, however, is a tool of spirituality.
Michael A. Singer assures us that we are capable of not being addicted to the thoughts of our mind.
A committed spiritual practice...whatever works for you that helps to draw your attention away from personality's needs, desires and aversions and back onto the essence of who you really are...will help you to recover from this addiction.
Namaste.
All is well.
Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( December 31, 2023) The power of Undistracted Consciousness. https://tou.org/talks/
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