I am not qualified to speak about this subject. I am just tempted. I am an ordinary man and have not undergone any professional education to talk about mind. Needless to say, I cannot make any statement that could challenge your existing set of thinking pattern. Although it’s a different story that I have studied professional books on mind and it’s working for past 11 years. I cannot guarantee this article could be of your interest in any way nor can I offer any reason for you to proceed beyond this sentence.

But that you are reading this sentence, says that you have chosen to continue. Pause! Think!! Why? You were given two pieces of information – one that I am not qualified enough to speak over this subject and second that I have learned enough to spin out an article on this subject. You made a choice to continue reading. There could be others who might have given up after the first paragraph and some may even have given up after the first line, but you continued. What does it say about you? There are many possibilities. May be you are just inquisitive and want to go through the entire length of this article to find out what it is all about or may be you just are hoping it could be informative. My mind at this moment gives only these two possibilities, but there could be others too. In any case, I am hoping you would continue further and so I begin the article now.

Mind – we all have it, but only a few really own it. Yes there is a difference in the two sentences, but before we understand it, we need to know that there is a difference between our mind and us. We are different then our mind. But that we were born with and that it’s existence has merged with that of ours is the reason why we cannot identify the difference between us and the mind. We are so trapped within this entity called mind that we identify ourselves as our Mind.

I believe, that other than few exceptions, most of us think we are what we think we are. But the fact is we aren’t what we think we are. We have identified ourselves with our mind so much that we have completely forgotten of our own existence.

The people we meet in our every day life are not the real people but a portrayal of a character created by the mind belonging to those people. We all do this – defining our own character. Every now and then we say - this is who I am, this is what I like, this is what turns me off and so on. This pattern of thinking of the mind has continued since our birth, and hence has a strong hold on us. So even if you are awakened today out of this mind created illusions, there is less chance that you could break free out of this cage. We are all trapped for lifetime.

The only options then left with us is that we try to understand this mind and it’s working so that we two can co-exist as symbionts.

The first think we need to, do to understand our mind is to find out how it works. A classic example would be to look at a glass half filled with water and ask your self what do you think about it. You would say, it is half empty or it is half filled or if you are like me, you would say why should I even bother to think over that glass of water.

The point is, you will have one or other thought but not necessarily it could be the only possibility. Any other person in your position could think different and there is a possibility it might not have occurred to you. Why does this happen. Why the difference between the thoughts of two humans. It is because there is a difference in the thinking pattern of each human. The difference lies in their mindset.

Mindset is nothing but our way of thinking, a pattern of thoughts that govern our actions. We may follow many different patterns. We keep creating new patterns of thinking based on our life experiences at some point or other all throughout our life, and one of them becomes our default pattern. It is this pattern that defines our personality majorly – the way we perceive ourselves and others.

Choose any incident from your life where you formed some sort of opinion. It could be about an event or an object or a person. We keep doing that every now and then. Just choose some thing that you can recollect vividly. Ask yourself what was your opinion at that of point of time. Now, just for a moment imagine if there was another possibility other than what you were thinking, what it could be. Force yourself to think of another possibility if need be. I believe you may come out with some other thought, which would lead you to have an altogether different opinion. It is possible to think different if we do it consciously. Unfortunately we don’t do this exercise after every thought and hence continue with our default thinking pattern.

Take for instance, a case of traffic officer. Lets name him Joe. So, Imagine yourself watching Joe. At the moment, Joe is one duty and has caught a biker breaking traffic rules. The biker pleads for mercy but Joe refuses to oblige. Then he cautiously signals for a bribe. The biker being helpless gives him the money and leaves from there. You watch Joe smartly tucking in the money in his pocket and grinning.
[What would you think about Joe at this stage? Hold on to your opinion and let us proceed further.]

You now notice that there is another traffic officer in the scene. Perhaps he might have taken a break and now is returning to his duty. As soon as he returns, Joe narrates him about the incident with the biker and gives fifty per cent of the money to his colleague.
[What would you think about Joe at this stage? Hold on to your opinion and let us proceed further.]

In the evening as their duty ends, Joe and his colleague move towards home. Joe’s colleague invites him for a drink, but Joe turns down the offer saying he has given up smoking and boozing. However, he agrees to give company to his colleague. They park their gypsy, the official vehicle, in front of the bar. In the bar, his colleague passes out after couple of drinks and Joe has to drag him home, but before that the bill needs to be paid. Joe has two options – he would either pay the bill himself or take the money for the bill out of his colleague’s pocket.
[After knowing Joe so far, what do you think Joe would do?]

Joe doesn’t choose either of the option. Instead he carries his colleague on his shoulder and moves towards exist. The Bar Manager hesitatingly requests for the bill to be paid. At this Joe, abuses him and says don’t mess with a cop and walks out without paying the bill.
[What would you think about Joe at this stage? Hold on to your opinion and let us proceed further.]

Joe puts his colleague in the backseat and starts the gypsy and moves from there. He drives towards a nearest shopping plaza. With his friend still in the vehicle Joe enters the plaza and walks straight into a sports shop. There he asks the salesman to show him a nice cricket bat. The sales man shows him various options and Joe picks one of them for his son. He examines the bat carefully and then simply looks at it for a while.
“My son wants to be Sachin Tendulkar “, he says smilingly to the salesman.
Joe than reaches for a pocket and is about to pay for the bat when the salesman refuses to accept the money, saying he cannot accept money from a cop. Joe, however, forces him to take the money. But seeing the salesman too scared of his uniform, he just leaves the money on the counter and walks out.
[What would you think about Joe at this stage? Hold on to your opinion and let us proceed further.]

A while later Joe reaches home. He walks into his house with his colleague still in the vehicle. He gives the bat to his son and cuddles him with love, while boosting his morale to be a number one cricketer. He then walks into the kitchen and hugs his wife who is busy preparing dinner. He tells her how happy the kid was to get the bat and thanks her for giving him such a wonderful son. He gives her the credit for all his happiness and tells her about his plan to hire a maid so that she can rest.
[What would you think about Joe at this stage? Hold on to your opinion and let us proceed further.]

Joe then tells his wife that he would be back in an hour and leaves. He drives to his colleagues place to drop him home. From there he goes to the police station, does his reporting, leaves the vehicle at the station and comes home by bus.
[What would you think about Joe at this stage?]

I don’t know what thoughts you had about Joe, at each stage and what thought you have now. But you know.

Whatever you perceive of Joe defines your mindset. It is possible that some of you would rate Joe as good while some would say bad and yet another group of people would consider him a normal ordinary man. Good or bad, right or wrong whatever you think of Joe lies in your mind. In reality, Joe is just a human who acts in response to life events. If in reality, Joe is good then those who think of him as bad they should be wrong and if we consider Joe as a bad human then those who have rated him good should be wrong. But if we consider the possibility of people’s opinion being wrong then the questions is how can we find out the truth about Joe. There simply is no way. Because other than humans, no one else can communicate and humans as we know can only form opinions which could either be right or wrong. There cannot be classification of any sort for Joe then. There simply cannot be a definite category for Joe or for that matter any of us. But time and again we place people, objects and events in different category thinking that we know the truth. What we think is just the by-product of our mindset. The difference, if any, is the result of our pattern of thinking. The concept of ‘character’ – good or bad, is created within our mind and has no validity in reality. Unfortunately, this pattern of thinking even encompasses us. Like we did for Joe, we also form an opinion about ourselves and we believe that this person with whom we identify with is our true self.

All the chaos in the universe is the result of this opinionated self. We judge ourselves, others, life, even god. This judgment of ours takes shape of an opinion that we form about a particular person or event. Based on our opinion we nurse feelings towards that person and even our actions get influenced. That’s how an interaction between tow leads to either friendship or enmity, based entirely on the opinions tow have about each other. Never do we ponder that the person could be different than what we perceive. If we realize that there could be a possibility of truth being something else other than what we perceive, then gradually we would come to a state of thoughtlessness as the only work mind does, is classification. Devoid of the ability to classify, mind has no existence. It ceases to function and all thoughts dissolves. This state of thoughtlessness is divine and pure and hence rare. Not everyone is destined to attain this state.

If you wish to pursue it, however, then all you need to do is - Watch your Mind!

-|http://www.ilimow.com

We are spiritual beings having a brief illusory physical excursion.

An important article Ilimow, great to read it :0)

Laz



Who Are you?

You don't know who you are.

So you think that what you are now is who you should be.

You are afraid to be anything different.

long time no sea, laz