My Three Priceless Reminders

Image from Lucy's album

Believe it or not, there was a time when I could quite easily and rapidly free fall into the bottomless pit of despair or disappointment or frustration or rage…

During those times, a relentless cycle of thoughts and feelings would keep me helplessly trapped within its paralyzing grip. 

So consumed was I with my thoughts and feelings, I was completely oblivious of the fact that I was trapped and that I was cycling through the same disempowering state interminably.

Oh my, what a state that was! 

And all through it, I would be consumed with the injustices, the unkindness, the insensitivities, the bloody-mindedness, the arrogance, the callousness, the dishonesty, the insincerity, the ill-intent of the other party. 

I would be thinking and rethinking AND JUDGING for the thousandth and tenth time, what had been said, done, projected, alleged, not said, not done, not defended, not justified by the other party. 

I would be raging or despairing with my response at the time and feverishly rehearsing my better, more bold, more ‘I’ll show them!’ future response. 

Dialogues fueled by outrage or self-pity or condemnation or righteousness or fear would play in my mind almost unceasingly, only briefly leaving me alone if and when my attention was forcefully drawn elsewhere.

Needless to say, my responses to these troubling situations and events were never fulfilling and the outcomes that they generated were never satisfying.  On the contrary, they kept the ground fertile for future and almost inevitable conflict. 

Not all of these conflicts were overt and dramatic, out there in the open.  No, most, I would say, were of the stealthy type – understated, expressed often in silence, withdrawal, ignoring, avoidance, sulking, and a kind of saintly accedence. 

As you can imagine, none of these responses resulted in lasting peace. 

True, they did provide temporary relief and given the degree of mental and emotional (and physical – my stomach used to churn, I’d feel nauseous, throw up, be more prone to illness and injuries etc) turmoil I was in, the relief was vital, life-saving almost!

But, worst of all, despite all the mental, emotional and physical effort I would have invested in these situations/events, I never felt good about myself no matter how hard or how eloquently I defended my response while condemning the actions of the other party. 

Most of this prosecution and defense happened in my head, of course, though I would share some of its story with sympathetic friends. 

I kept telling the story over and over again as if repetition would make it -BECOME and FEEL true according to how I had construed it, of course. 

The thing is, it never FELT true although it may have sounded reasoned and convincing intellectually.

It was only when I took the time to observe and study the nature of the mind that I began to realize that in all these conflicts, these undesirable situations, these *injustices*,

·       I was the common link.  In other words, I was always present.  Without me, there was no story, no event, no disturbance, no turmoil

·       My thoughts and feelings, my outrage, disappointment, sense of injustice etc were learned and habitual, resulting from associations that I’d made from a long time ago, perhaps even while in my mother’s womb!

·       I was trying to protect a *me* that didn’t really exist in the way I believed it to be i.e. separate, finite, unchanging, condemned forever to its beliefs, habits of thoughts, words and actions

Whoa!  What a realization that was!  What liberation it offered! 

I knew I was onto a good thing.  I was going to continue to observe and study.  I was after PEACE, JOY and FREEDOM and I was going to find them and I did!

But it’s not over.  It’s an ongoing thing, a never-ending journey.  I am still discovering more and more about the mind, and experiencing greater peace, joy and freedom along the way.

Each time I experience a situation in which the old, disempowering habits of the mind arise yet again, I am better able to bring my mind into the light of truth, into its clear water mind state where its thoughts and behaviors are seen for what they truly are – passing clouds, mud that has been disturbed,

These thoughts, feelings, words, actions are not *ME*.  They arise in the field of consciousness but they are not *ME*.  They arise and, if I let them be, they just fall away. 

I do not attach to them nor avoid them.  I am no longer under their disempowering grip.  I simply see them as passing events and I let them pass. 

When we think and say, “This too shall pass”, often we miss the deeper truth underlying these words. 

It’s not that some mysterious, more powerful force, causes them to pass.  Rather, it’s we, you and I, who can and must choose to let them pass, seeing them as events, no more and no less than any other and which, when there is neither attachment to or avoidance from, will dissipate like clouds.

In other words, we ALWAYS have control over our response. 

Now, so many of us pay lip service to this idea, this assertion.  We will often readily say, ‘Oh yes, we can choose our response’. 

But as long as that response comes from a place of powerlessness, anger, frustration, indignation, retribution etc, in other words, as long as we respond from FEAR, we have not chosen FREELY.  Instead, we have merely responded from habit, from disempowering beliefs and associations also known as conditioning.

It is an unnatural response.

You need to understand that the response from fear is a self-protecting and separating response, reinforcing the ILLUSION of a separate, incomplete and un-whole self.

The response from peace, joy, power, freedom and love, on the other hand, is a natural response.  It is free, open, expansive and aligned with the TRUTH of a unified, complete, unconditioned and whole SELF in which there is no separation and no need for self-protection.

So, all that said, what are my Three, Priceless Reminders that help me quickly illuminate the habituated/conditioned mind and its beliefs, thoughts and behaviors with the pure light of Truth/Love?

My Three Priceless Reminders:

1.   This is an event/situation that my unnatural, conditioned, muddy water mind has construed as a result of long established beliefs and associations

2.   I am by nature Peaceful, Joyous, Powerful and Free

3.   When I respond from my natural state, I remain in the natural flow of Peace, Joy, Power and Freedom

How did I come up with these reminders that, by the way, I can apply to ANY situation? 

Through familiarization.  

And how did I familiarize myself with them?

By observing and studying my mind which I sometimes describe as the practice of meditation J

That’s right.  Not affirmation, not indoctrination, not acceptance of someone else’s realization or familiarization but MY OWN real-time observation. 

Wouldn’t you like to do the same?  I hope so J