"Is not thinking itself a notion in the mind?" ~ Nisargadatta
“I’ve been trying to make it die. It’s got to go. I need to be rid of it.”
I hear this often.
What is this terrible, evil, life-can’t-be-right-till-it’s-gone thingy?’
Thought. Mind. Ego. Personality. Different words, same same.
Whatever it’s called, it needs to get G. O. N. E.
Good spiritual seekers know that thoughts need to be slowed down so there’s more space in between. Better yet, disappear those suckers completely. Mind-stillness is better. Silence is better. And let’s face it- the internal voice is a tyrant. Who wouldn’t want that crab to shut up?
Clearly, thought-eradication is necessary for enlightened, self-less, clear, transcendence.
And of course guess who it’s up to, to make all that happen?
Enter helplessness, shame, guilt, secrecy and resignation.
Great, give us some more o’ that!
Although …
Good luck having a wonderful happy life without mind.
First, because if it did leave, where would it go- the isle of exiled minds?
And second, because what would we be left with, without thought?
Can you say “coma?”
Maybe just some kind of sausage with feet.
Could it be we need this mind we are so sure stands between us and enlightenment and a better life?
Not to mention, when we are perpetually looking for ways to make thought leave, we are perpetually having to …
keep seeking.
Because thoughts keep coming. Ego doesn’t vanish (A quick glimpse of all the enlightened sages on Facebook will verify this.)
Mind drives the car, helps with homework, plans the workweek.
Trying to make it disappear is a never-ending exercise in failure.
While on the other hand, if we suddenly saw that perhaps mind doesn't have to die, that we’re fine even with thought/self/personality still seemingly “here” …
There would be nothing more to chase.
Surprise!
What we’ve been seeking all this time actually might require the opposite of trying to eradicate mind.
Besides, is mind even kill-able at all? Is that truly a possibility?
That implies that it’s a real thing.
When actually, it’s a concept. So is the idea that mind/thought/ego exists at all.
We’ve been hell-bent on getting rid of an idea.
And ideas are... well, what, exactly?
Not to mention, what wants the mind gone?
That would be…
Itself.
Ok so let’s get this straight. Thought says, “Yes I’m a very bad nonexistent thing, and I need to make it my life-long goal to make my very own self vanish forever.”
Um, what?
For years we’ve been spinning in circles trying to eliminate thoughts which have been pretending to figure out solutions to problems they manufactured in the first place.
That’s a stacked deck which puts yet another idea – the sense of self- at the center of everything.
Nothing wrong with that. It's just exhausting.
So what if instead, we could let the ideas just have their little games? Let them run free, like happy ponies in a field.
After all, they’re ideas. They're a whole bunch of nothing.
They just don’t matter.
There’s nothing to eradicate.
Which means blessedly, there’s nothing for us to do.
Which means finally we can have some fun watching what happens when we’re free of having to …
Save nothing …
From itself.
"He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it." --Douglas Adams
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