Believing that we are our bodies or our mind, creates untold suffering. The suffering is because of the energy that is stored in your body. Your body is being receptive all the time, to all the thoughts and experience. Your body doesn’t see the difference of “what is real” and “what is not”. If you are having a negative thinking pattern and aren’t aware of that, then you take those thoughts personally and as real. As you think, your body considers the thinking as the truth and is reacting in influence with that thought. You directly assume you are those thoughts without any filter and so is your body receptive to whatever energy the thought regulates. If it is a positive thought, then it brings healing to your body. But if the thought is something negative, then it causes resistance in your body compromising its normal state of being. If we are not taking a conscious responsibility towards these negative patterns that trigger our body, then in long term it will convert into disease. The body is subject to aging, disease, and ultimately annihilation.
In non-duality, we don’t see any separation between “we” and “our world”. We see everything as one, as consciousness it is. We don’t consider any thing, place, person or circumstance as an entity. We see the non-entity part of every thing, place, person or circumstance that is allowing the space for them to exist. Ultimately, every single thing present in the universe that includes every existing living things and existing non-living things are just energies. These energies are liberated by the atoms through which these things take a physical form and are existing.The space were all these energies are being expressed is what who you truly are. Every atom of the body will eventually dissipate as energy into the wider universe. Hence, concluding the universe is just energy. It can neither be created nor destroyed, but can be transformed from one form to another, one energy to another.
The mind is nothing but a storage of collective ideas we have been storing and experiencing throughout our life. The mind/brain is the mechanism of how our body works. Our mind is the one that drives our body into motion. Mind considers the body as something very personal to it and is in constant quest to protect it, to keep it safe. So when an idea that your body has resistance to is regulated for long time, then your mind becomes obsessed by it. It is an idea/ thought/ pattern that you unconsciously have been dwelling for a long time which is causing your body to suffer. But mind is just obsessed by that thought because it sees that thought as a threat and is trying to protect you. But it doesn’t know anything better than just by being obsessed. That is why, when we are stuck into negative patterns we only are just stuck into vicious cycles of thinking same negative thoughts over and over again. And we will never find a solution to thoughts ultimately. Because thinking of the problem doesn’t solve the problem. It creates more problem and suffering. It just creates more unconsciousness. The solution to it is, to see that you are not your mind nor your thoughts, you are the one who is AWARE of them. The mind seems to be full of negative and destructive thoughts, and yet it feels like “me talking to me”. So, what will become of “me” if the mind is to end? What if I lose my mind?
How to know you’re not the body or the mind? Well, we have to see it for ourselves clearly, and that can happen by seeing it through curiosity, not with the mind or a thought, not by trying to think about it, but by being curious of your actual current experience.
I invite you to follow along with me here and inquire this for yourself right now. Stay here with me.
The mind is made up of thoughts, the voice in your head, mental images, memories, and imagination – all categorised as thinking. Between two thoughts, does any of the real “YOU” disappear? Suppose you could never think another thought again, no voice in the head, no mental images, no memories or mental imagination/thinking– would any of the real “YOU” disappear, or would you still be here 100 percent you?
So, if we were to remove all thoughts, all activity of the mind, and you are still “you”, then the mind cannot be vital to you. If the mind is not needed for “you” to be “you”, then it cannot be what you essentially are, that is your “True-nature”. If you were to remove all thoughts, you would remain still here, still “YOU”.
Now let’s look at the body. The body is made up of sensation – what we can see, hear, taste, smell, touch, feel. You have your sense perceptions, and you sense the body. You can look down and see the body, feel and touch it, and that experience arises as sense perceptions in this awareness. Notice that you are aware of the body. Notice that the body appears in this awareness.
Now, imagine you were a newborn baby before you had any knowledge of a body, even before any of the sense perceptions have come to realisation. Would you still essentially be yourself, just not perceiving a body? There are these sense perceptions appearing in this awareness, but let’s imagine we removed all sensations and perceptions. What would remain? Only awareness, only pure consciousness, only YOU.
Go to your actual direct current experience you are in contact with right now. Do you appear in your body, or does the body appear in you? Does awareness appear in the body, or does the body appear in awareness? Without the body, what remains? Only awareness, only pure being, only what you essentially are – the space that all the sense perceptions appear in and as.
Now, go to this awareness, this pure “I am-ness” before all thought and all experience of the body or mind. Was this ever born? Will it ever die? It doesn’t appear in time; the appearance of time appears in it. You are not the body or the mind.
But here’s the plot twist on the relative level: You are the body and the mind, even though ultimately you are not the body and the mind. You are this infinite being who’s creating this temporary human experience. You still provide to the needs of the body and the mind, just as you would provide to the needs of your family, job, or house. You do your best to keep everything healthy and in order for the duration of this earth experience.
Ultimately, it is seen to be an appearance within you. You might say, “If I am not the body or the mind and I am this infinite being, then why am I not aware of the whole universe or the rest of consciousness? Why am I appearing as this temporary limited human experience?”
Well, in order for there to be experience, infinite consciousness seems to localise itself through a body and a mind so that it can appear to itself. The infinite being that you are is so powerful that it can create the experience of being a limited human with a body and a mind in a world where you forget that you are the infinite being. In fact, it can do that eight billion times over simultaneously, trillions of times simultaneously. In fact, it can appear as anything, absolutely anything, and it’s you.
In order to create the balance between our true nature that is being our True-self and our physical being which carries limitations, below are some practices which when are voluntarily performed consciously can bring amazing transformation in your life.
- The illusion of identity:
With this article you now have clarity about the illusion-self we carry, which is our body. We are not our body, but the one who is aware of it. Living with this realisation will bring your body back to its normal state of being and allow all the negative and un-serving pattern of thoughts to fall apart. When you no longer are rehearsing your body’s reaction to a thought, you liberate it. Hence, this realisation of not seeing yourself as the body you are, will bring amazing positive changes in your state of being. Because, by default our body operates radiating love and bliss, its our thoughts/ego that limits and brings resistance and compromises its normal state of being.
2. Connecting with the Observer:
The best way to be an observer is, in any moment just start to connect with any of your senses.
- You can either listen and name 3 sounds you are able to hear right now.
- You can name 3 things you are physically touching.
- You can name what kind of taste is lingering in your tongue right now.
- 3 things that you can see right now.
- Connecting with your breath and watching how the breath movement is taking place.
This practice of connecting with your senses will bring you back into the present moment.
3. Cultivating Presence:
Realising the now moment is always constant of your life and you as awareness are always in the now and not in the past or future. This will bring major changes in your life. Because all opportunities which are abundantly involved and are available in the now are lost when you are involved in thinking. Realising the thoughts are just part of your mind and doesn’t serve anything but distraction will allow you to actually open doors of abundance in the now.
4. Meditative Practices:
Cultivating 15 mins of silence as your daily routine will allow your Awareness to expand exponentially. This way you will be in more control of your state of being and not allow your body to easily distract you. You can only be the awareness you are, when you have at least little realisation of who you truly are. And that can be achieved only when you connect with the silence that resides beyond your thinking. What remains when there are no thoughts? That silence is you. When you connect with it, you make it your norm and are not easily influenced by the thinking.
I hope you liked this article. If you want to explore more on this, then you can follow me on Youtube at “Treasure In Your Garden” to listen extended version of this topic.
Thankyou for this.