Tags
attention, awareness, consciousness, desire, detachment, Eckhart Tolle, imagination, intention, journey, Mind, personal growth, self improvement, visulaization
When I think of journeys, I also think of destinations; it’s only natural. But the greatest journey is the one where our feet can’t take us. It’s the journey inside.
Some of you can’t physically move, some are in hospitals, or prisons, or afraid of the outdoors, or simply comfortable not journeying. But this kind of journey is available to all of us, no matter where we are, no matter what we are doing.
As a matter of fact, the journey inside can be more exhilarating, more rousing, and significantly more fulfilling as any journey with our feet.
First of all, we don’t need any money. What a relief. Everybody can go, no matter of what you own, or don’t own.
Secondly, we get to choose the general direction of where we want to go, and we can change our mind at any time: with no cancellation fees!
Thirdly, we can travel to places we can only imagine. Any destination we can think up, we can go. We can be daredevils, acrobatic stunt person, or calm contemplative observer, and no matter what, we are never in danger.
Journeying with our mind allows us to generate a perspective that can question everything that we ‘see’. It is a speculative perspective. You see, when we ‘see’ something with our eyes, we’ve already applied our mental filter to the image. It often comes with attached thoughts, like: judgements, associations, feelings, desires, labels, and all sorts of strings that we have learned to attach to all of our imagery.
Using our minds and not our eyes allows us to paint the picture from scratch and understand the layers of colours, images, and textures that we want to apply, and the feeling behind each one. What colours are in your palette? What associated thoughts and labels do you attach to the images you apply, and why? Could you paint an image with your mind and not attach those labels? What would that look like?
There is so much to be gained by using our minds as a tool to explore, not just our thoughts, not just our mental images and all of the strings we attach to them, but also our behaviours. When we can become aware of our self and witness our actions, we start to bring those automatic behaviours, our habits, in to consciousness.
When we can do that, bring something from the background of our brain, select it, and bring it forward for a more detailed examination, or simply to observe, we have another chance to detach a label, or shift a perspective, by understanding the attachments that we have to it in the first place.
Looking at the links we have to a behaviour or thought or habit, sometimes looks like uncovering past steps that have been washed over by higher water. we don’t normally see the intermediate steps that led us to where we are today, unless we tale the time to look deeper.
Let’s look at a practical example: many people have a fear of letting a partner go. Think about that for a minute. Letting someone else go that you are in a relationship with. Does anything about that statement sound ….off?
First of all, we can’t control anyone but ourself.
Secondly, if we have no control over other people, then our fear is irrational.
Thirdly, If our fear is irrational, then it isn’t real.
Lastly, if there is no real fear, then we need not fear the actions of another. Whether they stay or they go is always, and will always be, up to them. We can now let that go.
When we examine this particular insecurity, we can start to uncover our own agreements that might have made us associate our fear of being alone with our own actions. If I am a better person, stronger, more successful, thinner, with more hair and muscles, smarter, and so on, ad infinitum.
Ahh, so now we begin to understand the real fear lies within us, with our agreements, and beliefs, and previous experiences. Then something wonderful begins to happen. We start to see things from a new perspective.
Our brain starts processing, lessening ties to this irrational fear, sorting our old thoughts and agreements, loosening the ties to previous beliefs. It starts a process that can actually shift the perspective and substitute old agreements for new ones. Bit by bit, we start the substitution process.
Sometimes an event can create a snap substitution like BAM! Just like that. More often, however, we are in a constant state of substitution, an old belief for a new agreement and only be being consistent with our application do we keep the process moving toward our new thoughts.
Fantastic voyages of our mind. Inescapable, and constantly whirling around, our mind keeps talking to us, keeping us company. When we learn to focus our mind like the tool it is, rather than simply listening to it, we can use it to our extreme advantage.
We can foster the ability to image new experiences before they might happen, or before we could ever conceive of them happening. We can explore the richness of our environment by simply thinking about it, before we apply our minds filter to the images that stream in from our eyes.
We can also begin to become aware of our own behaviours, and observe what we have naturally done in the background, thereby giving us an opportunity to review whether or not we want to continue it or not. Understand the ties and bonds we have developed with it, and, if we choose, start substituting a new belief or agreement to the action or behaviour. This is powerful!
When I think about just a few of the fantastic ways our minds can hep us journey to other worlds, better worlds, or help make us better versions of our self, I can’t help but think about what my girlfriend also speaks about. She started me on the path of visualizing what I wanted in life, and holy smokes, this is a powerful tool! I have manifested so much in just the last couple of years that is absolutely along my path of greatest desire.
This is yet another way to use our mind, but its resultant, or end goal, is only partially within our control. In so much as we create an environment within our mind, this acts like soil to a seed. A fertile environment for growth, and this is why it’s called co-creating, because soil is only one ingredient. When we want something in our life, like a partner, wealth, better health, a new career, we can first decide on what we want and create an image. Then we can set a desire to focus in on this each day.
In this way we provide the mental ‘soil’ and the desire, or ‘seed’, we wish to grow, and the universe comes to our aid to assists us in this regard. Once a decision is made about what we want, the universe starts working to bring us just that. That’s the other co-creator of our desired that offers our seed the rest of the necessary ingredients for successful growth.
The universe can be whatever you have labelled the sense of something greater than ourselves: God, Gaia, Buddha, Jesus, the Cosmos, the eternal spirit, whatever that is for you, I call it the universe.
If you have heard of Intention and Attention, this is all about that. Our ‘Intention’ is all about the ‘what’ we want. It is the direction in the compass of our mind. Our attention is the fuel we have to get there and the more we think about our goal, the more fuel we give our vehicle to get there; all the while the universe is also rushing to meet us along the path at a moment that we will only experience when it all comes together.
So, you see, I view our mind as an incredibly fantastic, in all the senses of that word, tool that we can earn to use to explore both inner and outer space, our own awareness of our actions and the associated linkages we have fastened to each and every one, and it still has the vast ability to coordinate the energies of the unknown universe to co-create our desired path, with a little work on our side.
I am in awe of what I have just started to pick up! Every times I become aware of a behaviour, every time I can articulate something that had been merely a gut feeling, a reaction, and unexplained event on my part I get that much more grateful for the awareness that I have fostered and the sheer inspiring fascination with the power of our minds.
My Intention is to have True Seeing. I want to abandon all of my filters that I have attached to everything I see. I want to see you just as you are, with no labels or preconceived notions or judgements.
I doing so, I bring my Attention to bear on this as much as possible. Like a huge onion, every time I witness a behaviour, I examine it, and start peeling away the layers, the covers, the masks of who I am.
What is your Intention? Desire? How do you create your focus, your attention? Do you know what direction you are taking your life? Are you aware of your current path?
Let me challenge you to this:
Close your eyes. Think of one small thing you would like to change in your life. Hold it there in your mind’s eye. Visualize it. Feel it. Can you imagine what that would feel like? Can you imagine what that would mean to those around you? Now, spend a moment running that film in your mind and playing it as if it has already happened. Play that tape, live that moment. then, when you are ready, slowly return to your present moment. Breathe in and slowly breathe out. Now, open your eyes and write that one thing down on any piece of paper you have handy.
This is the important part. Put that piece of paper in your pocket or your purse, and look at it every day. Look at it every time your remember it. Focus your energies on it without any doubt. Try not to attach yourself to the desired outcome, or to a timeline, as it will come when it is ready, at just the right time. Want to increase the power of this vision? Paste images related to it on a board so you can ‘see’ it every day!
If there is anything that I know, it is this: when we focus our intention with our attention, we create a mental image that is so fertile that the seed of our desire will manifest itself by the hand of the universe. It will happen.
Over the next while, ponder the big questions in life, then start your journey, this very moment!
Where would you like to journey?
What is your desire in life?
Who are you under all those layers?