But as every child is born with ‘Eden Consciousness,’ everyone has known a magic time of existence without self-conscious thought. When Jesus suggested that we ‘become as little children’, he was evidently referring to those very young children—that is, infants—who are aware and clear-eyed, before the movement of self-conscious mind has come to cloud them over. It is only when we can return to a similar condition, to the state of being without a sense-of-individualised-mind (but this time with awareness), that spontaneous and free-flowing thought arises from the Original Source as and when necessary.

“That’s all very well if you are a Sage,” you might say. “But how can I stop my mind from chattering on? I’m only little old me.”

Yet every Self-realised Sage was once ‘little old me’ to himself, just an ordinary man in the street to begin with. And each one found his way (starting from the same place as everyone else) by investigating this thing called ‘mind’.

So how to begin? Firstly we need to realise that ‘mind’ and ‘me’ are not one and the same thing. When we say, “My mind is playing tricks on me”, or “My mind is driving me crazy”, we intuitively understand it as something separate from ourselves. It is my mind, we say, considering it like a possession. Even if it were true, a possession is always other than its owner. My house, my car, my family, my body, my hand, my foot—are all separate objects from my-self. And so it is with my ‘mind’. Except that ‘mind’ is not an object or a thing which exists in itself that one is able to ‘possess’.

If mind was an entity in itself, it would always be self-luminous and therefore impossible to extinguish. If self-consciousness was the actual inherent nature of ‘the mind’, then it would always have to be self-aware and conscious of itself. But ‘mind’ is not a permanent entity. This wishy-washy, changeable, unreasonable and fluctuating thought-flow disappears entirely in deep sleep, or in swoon or samadhi states. If I was my mind, then neither ‘I’ nor ‘mind’ could ever be non-conscious in these conditions. So the best we can say of our ‘sense-of-mind’ is that it is no more than an occasionally observable fluid process which only exists for the time we choose to participate in it.

We are not obliged to do so.

We have no need to consider mind (mental static) as ‘mine’, any more than accepting a headache as a ‘possession’. Nor do we have to take its ramblings seriously. Yet we have become so accustomed to its endless chatter-boxing that we take it as the natural state of affairs. It is like having a radio left on forever, being unaware that it is switch-offable. Having let it play for so long, it is extremely difficult to switch off. Difficult, yes—but not impossible. We just have to remember how to adjust the controls.

Author: Muz Murray;

As a first step, with practice, we can stand back from the thought-flow and simply watch what is going on. The very fact that I can watch my mental activity shows that it is something other than myself. If I begin to investigate it seriously, watching it—as in meditation—it eventually disappears altogether. But even without meditation, if we simply focus our attention on ‘mind’ itself, seeking its source of arising, we can find nothing there. It is too much of a phantom. Thoughts cease. Then we say the ‘mind’ is clear. But clarity is our true nature. Mind is like a film of mist across that clarity. As soon as we lose our attentiveness, this wretched thought-flow starts up again like an unstoppable spring.

However, if we get into the habit of watching our thoughts, we shall soon see that ‘mind’ is mainly involved in a very sterile process of turgid recapitulation or preparation. I call this the ‘Repetition and Rehearsal’ syndrome.


To be continued...

Adapted from, Sharing the Quest: Secrets of Self-Understanding. If you would like the full text version in advance, for free, add your email here: https://www.muzmurray.com/contact

Never Mind the Mind CD; if you absorb better by listening, you can buy the download from here: Audio CD Web Page: https://bit.ly/2HxdMJi

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Author

British mystic, author, psychotherapist, spiritual counsellor, mantra yogi, fine artist and illustrator, theatrical set and costume designer. Founder-editor of Gandalf’s Garden magazine and Community in the London Sixties, and 3 years as columnist for Yoga Today magazine, BBC 4 Scriptwriter, author of four spiritual self-development books and two storybooks for children. 

Muz Murray