Know yourself. Understand how you work, how your thoughts control and your body follows, how your mind speaks and your soul weeps for recognition. How can you truly know and understand another if you have not fully known and understood all the things about yourself that keep you such a mystery? Why do you do the things you do? Ask yourself—ask your mind and body and soul. That is where the answers lie, not with another being whom you profess all to, but with yourself whom you hardly know, yet with whom you have already traveled a long road. Get to know yourself, your most trusty traveling companion through life, that strange and wondrous being that you are!
“Digestion begins in the mouth! Digestion begins in the mouth! Digestion begins in the mouth!”
That was Jan’s 5 am recapitulation of a third grade memorization at St. Mary’s, sixty children loudly responding to the question from their teacher-nun, “Where does digestion begin?”
What prompted this discussion was an effort we’ve been making to memorize an affirmation that Robert Monroe had formulated for safe out-of-body travel. It’s been a long time since either of us has taken up the task of memorization! Of course, shortly after that discussion we encountered that affirmation again in our morning reading. A specific portion of it was cited as being essential for out-of-body practitioners to enter a whole new dimension of exploration!
Breathe deeply and stillness will come… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Simultaneously, I was drawn back to Swami Vishnudevananda’s classic book, The Illustrated Book of Yoga, where I remembered having read about the very specific relationship between the breath and the mind. In a nutshell, I’ve come to the distilled proof: You can’t breathe and think at the same time!
Obviously, this “proof” is not completely true. We don’t completely cut off respiration when we think, but concentrated thinking does significantly slow, and sometimes halt, respiration for significant periods of time.
This proof can easily be tested. Take a moment and purposely and intensively focus your attention on any sound in your environment. Notice what happens to your breathing as you do so. My experience is that my breathing slows down or pauses as I concentrate on the sound.
The same relationship with our breath holds true when our mind becomes attached and preoccupied with a thought; breathing slows down or is halted for a period of time. Therefore, if you want to shift yourself away from a burgeoning thought fixation, turn your attention to breathing. Take in a slow deep breath. Do several of these slow deep breaths and you will break the fixation of the mind on its thoughts and feel revitalized within your physical body in the bargain!
As I see it, the mind is a separate body from the physical body. The mind, or mental body, actually resides in the energy body, a body separate and distinct from the physical body. When people say they have been out-of-body during waking life, off daydreaming perhaps, it generally means that their mind, or mental body, had scooted away from the physical body and gone off with the vital energy the body takes in when we breathe, what the yogis call prana. While the mind concentrates, consciously or unconsciously, on its thoughts, the body is shortchanged of its normal intake of oxygen, diminishing the vital energy of life as it is completely monopolized by the mind.
The body is often rigid, constricted, tense and immobile during intense preoccupation with thought. If the body is simultaneously in motion, it operates like a plane without a pilot, subject to collision and injury, much like the Absentminded Professor!
Actually, the mind does often utilize the physical brain when it thinks, which is why overthinking generally causes overheated brain circuits and headaches. The mind does not need the brain to function as is evident in out-of-body exploration when the energy body journeys beyond the body and uses the mind quite naturally to navigate its course. However, we can be in the physical body using the mind/brain connection and still be cut off from, or beyond connection with, the physical body.
Ahhh…fresh as a beautiful bed of flowers! – Photo by Jan Ketchel
When the mind is intentionally directed to the breath, however, the prana or life energy it has monopolized is dispersed throughout the body, in each conscious breath, reducing the anxious concentration of energy in the mental body, a frequent generator of high anxiety. So, as is highly recommended for all cases of anxiety, breathe and become calm!
And so, taking a tip from Jan’s childhood memory: Calmness begins in the breath! Calmness begins in the breath! Calmness begins in the breath! Perhaps the nuns of St. Mary’s might give that chant their stamp of approval!
When a frustrated student asked how to contend with his mind, whose meanderings had undermined his attempt at meditation for three hours straight, the teacher replied, sternly, “What your mind does is not your business!” *
Put attention where it matters most… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
The guidance was simple: let the mind do what it wants; place your attention on your breathing. You are not responsible for your thoughts; they have a mind of their own. However, you are responsible for where you place your attention. Hence, every time you notice your attention drawn to a thought, gently return your attention to your breath.
The fact is, we are of two minds: the mind that generates the thoughts and the mind that decides where to place its attention. Don Juan Matus explained it like this: “Everyone of us human beings has two minds. One is totally ours, and is like a faint voice that always brings us order, directness, purpose. The other mind is a foreign installation. It brings us conflict, self assertion, doubts, hopelessness.” **
Our meditation student was being coached to develop his true mind’s ability to place its attention on the breath, to withdraw its attention from the thoughts generated by the foreign installation, the mind that is truly not “his business.”
The objective of meditation, as well as the shamanic practices of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico, is to free the true mind from the dominance of the thought-story dramas produced by the foreign installation that, like the true reality portrayed in the movie The Matrix, steals our vital energy for its own sustenance.
However, the battle to free the true mind must be carried out with utter gentleness lest it be caught in the clutches of a foreign installation trap that absolutely thrives on inner conflict. The foreign installation mind catches us by feeling offended, inadequate, inappropriate, unworthy, unloved and unlovable, etc., all the myriad of ways the self has failed or been failed by others. There is no end to the stories generated by the foreign installation to trap our attention and feed off the energy of our ensuing inner conflict, as we sit captivated and live through the intense thought-story drama generated for our entertainment and attachment.
The foreign installation mind cannot be fought directly. The wisdom of the guidance—that this mind is not your business—is the freedom to not worry about it or pay any attention to the fact that it exists. It’s not about trying to control or change it either. It’s simply about taking attention away from it and placing it where we choose.
In the shaman’s world, it is this behavior—the refusal to engage in the dramas of self-importance generated by the foreign installation—that ultimately frees the self from the dominance of the foreign installation.
Simply put, when we don’t attach to the dramas of self-importance, our energy is withdrawn from the predator’s grasp, that is, the foreign installation that feasts upon our frantic energetic reaction to its thought-story dramas.
This is the true meaning of mindful detachment, as we learn to place our attention on being fully present, freed of attachment to the dramas that generate inner conflict, the product of the foreign installation mind. “Your” mind is not your business, but where you place your attention IS your business.
Fully present, in the moment… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Fully repossess your own mind. Do it calmly, with no judgment as to the number of times your attention is drawn to the wares of the foreign installation. That mind will continue to carry out its business, while you simply begin to more fully realize that you don’t have to shop there any more. Eventually, that merchant will move on, as you refuse to fund it with your vital energy.
Have no attachment to how long or short it takes; focus on placing your attention calmly where you want it. It’s as simple as that!
Freeing the mind, Chuck
* Excerpt from:Journey of Insight Meditation by Eric Lerner, p. 80
** Excerpt from:The Active Side of Infinity by Carlos Castaneda, p. 7
What stories am I telling myself today? – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Reality awaits us, just beyond the stories that present themselves rapid-fire from the inner “press” of the mind. When the shamans urge us to “suspend judgment,” they are referring to this function of mind that so quickly organizes a story around the scantest detail perceived and fleshed out by the mind. We are then drawn to attach to the story generated by the mind; in other words: to live as if the story were reality.
The “judgment” here is the storyline we have bought into and energetically invested in as emotions and thoughts emerge to guide our actions in accordance with our judgment or interpretation of reality.
So much of our vital energy is bound up in our interpretations of reality that we find ourselves encased in the familiar yet largely false stories we tell ourselves over and over again. Our intent gets bound up in upholding those stories too; or simply put, our intent generates our self-fulfilling story prophecy in our experiences of everyday reality.
For instance, one story might be that I don’t feel valuable or lovable. This story becomes reflected in the eyes of everyone I meet, their actions mirroring the story I tell myself. My intent generates the reality of my story. This story then becomes the filter for my life. All approaching energy, or the unfolding of daily life, becomes automatically formatted and neatly tailored to fit into and validate the truth of my story. This then becomes my reality.
Our stories become knitted together with such regularity or habit that we come to rest our identity upon them, the familiar tales we tell ourselves. They become like family. Thus, regardless of how limiting or unfulfilling our stories leave us, we remain compulsively drawn and attached to them for a sense of known definition in this world.
Tread lightly as you decide to release yourself from the bondage of your core stories. Change, regardless of how beneficial, often feels deeply disturbing to the security of known stories, as they are challenged to reveal their true identity and their true validity in our lives.
Time to spend our energy on what really matters… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
On the other hand, every time we stop the flow of energy from attaching to a story that flirts for our attention we accrue that energy in our spiritual savings account. When enough energy has been saved we are indeed freed to discover the true nature of who we really are as we spend our energy exploring true reality, the reality always present and coexistent but generally filtered out by our all-encompassing stories.
Suspend judgment. Explore the true nature of reality as it presents and unfolds in oncoming time. What an amazing true story awaits!
Send all those thoughts away! – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Here is today’s channeled message, good for anytime. All that crackling in the background is the wood stove, keeping us warm on a very cold morning. Have a great week!
