EVERYTHING IS MENTAL
THINKING IS LESS THEN CONSCIOUS
by Ross Bannister Todd 2000
Where are you relating to the world from?
If you are a product of our western culture it is from your mind, from your thought reality,
from what you think about what you or they are doing,
from what you think they think,
from your judgments,
opinions,
beliefs,
and your history.
All of this is mental, even most of the emotions you are feeling are coming from memories but humans cannot tell the difference between old feelings and new/current ones-so we are doomed to "re-play" them over and over.
MENTAL OR THOUGHT REALITY
You have a separate, mental or thought reality that exists only in your head, in you mind, in your ego mind and you are looking out at the world through it.
This effectively projects your unique mental, thought reality onto the shared or physical reality. Everything you see through a dirty window, looks dirty-appears to be different than it really is.
There is usually a lot going on in our own thought-reality, add what is going on in your body by way of emotions, feelings, and now you have a whole bunch of things going on in your unique reality that you are assuming is also going on or is at least related to what is going on in the physical or present time reality.
This mental reality feels real but it is actually based on emotions and feelings that are no longer going on, no longer true, that feel real.
You are living in a mental reality and pretending you are living in a physical reality. Your mind is creating this unique mental reality and your body is living in physical or true reality.
Most people identify with their mental chatter, what their ego thinks about what is going on instead of identifying with their actual experience of life. We get preoccupied with the chatter and miss the experience of living our life. And/or we are preoccupied with "old" emotions and again miss the fresh, only exists in the present moment truthful experience of life.
But what we are unaware of we are unaware of. In other words we don’t realize we have missed anything, because its gone...forever.
THINKING IS UNCONSCIOUS
Thinking is often mistaken for consciousness, awareness, presence but thinking differs from consciousness because it usually renders you unconscious, unaware, unavailable and not very present because you are busy, you are OCCUPIED with your mind and the act of thinking.
Most people assume they need to think in order to act, do something. If that is the case then why are you usually thinking about something other than what you are doing. Judging what you are doing also renders you less conscious, present, aware.
CONSCIOUSNESS AWARENESS
There is a level of consciousness that you may not even be aware exists. Because it is not language based, it is not "a chatter or voice" in our head. It is invisible, quiet, peaceful, it is not a thing and it is conscious, awake, present.
The only name I have ever been able to come up with for this consciousness is: attention. You can move your attention around your body-try it. Put it where your body meets the chair, or your shoes touch your feet. You can also put your attention on your chattering mind or this book, or on any sound, attention is a way of focusing on a single sense, eye, ear, body, taste, etc.
Yet this attention is silent, doesn’t "talk out loud" to you in your head.
Could this be the real you? Since the real you may not talk to itself in it’s/your head. Could this be your Spirit or some part of it? It looks to me as if the attention is as close to Spirit as I can get in my waking or "normal" reality, without being in a trance, altered state, or meditation.
So attention is a big deal, if it is not Spirit or Higher Self it is a trail, a piece of string to follow to lead you to greater awareness. Play with your awareness, sit with it, notice the difference between it and your chattering mind. [This is actually one of the purposes of meditation]
IN FACT YOU MIGHT EVEN NOTICE THAT YOU HAVE A MIND [CHATTER IN YOUR HEAD], AND A BODY, AND ATTENTION.
IF IT IS THE ATTENTION THAT NOTICES THE CHATTER MIND, THEN THE ATTENTION IS NOT THE/YOUR MIND !
IT IS A "THIRD" THING. IF YOU CAN SIT IN FRONT OF SOMEONE WHO IS TALKING AND NOTICE THEM TALKING AND NOTICE YOUR MIND "TALKING" AT THE SAME TIME, THEN I SUBMIT YOU ARE NOT YOUR CHATTERING MIND ! YOU ARE THE ONE LISTENING.
You can do this! I have been doing this "to" clients for many years. It "blows" their mind. Yes, it is very subtle, but I submit it proves that you are not your mind.
IT PROVES YOU ARE THE ONE LISTENING TO YOUR MIND!
THIS IS PROOF!
This means that your mental or thought reality, that you hear in your head isn’t you, it is a "third" thing, an add on, part of the body, like a radio is part of a car, but the only part that "talks". And is also powerless to make the car move.
Now if you can misidentify with the thought reality for a minute, you might see that it doesn’t even exist, it is entirely composed of thoughts and beliefs and re-enforced by memories of feelings. It is quite simply, imaginary an ILLUSION
If you are not identified with or listening to your mind then you are being FULLY conscious. This is actually being fully present in the moment, not preoccupied with your thoughts or emotions, and therefore aware of everything that is really going on in present-time-reality. Not at the effect of your history, your past, just present.
UNAWARENESS
What you are unaware of you don’t even know exists, it is simply not in your awareness. You are not dumb or stupid, you have simply not been educated, informed, or exposed to expanding your consciousness.
Everything is mental if you are looking from a high or expanded perspective. However, if you are only looking from the level that physical reality is all there is, is all that exists, then you are unaware that your perspective is very, very limited.
In other cultures this is the role of organized religion but our western organized religion has for the most part focused on guilt, judgment and limitation. While other cultures "religions" have focused their populations on freedom, immortality, unconditional love, and a non-judgmental "God-figure". But, it is not within the scope of this book to attempt to understand why, or question this phenomena.
How do you find out what you don’t know you don’t know? Since you don’t know you don’t know it, you don’t even realize there is anything you might want to learn or explore. This "endarkenment" seems to perpetuate and protect itself with defensiveness because when someone tries to teach us something outside of our sphere of knowledge or awareness we often interpret it as them making us wrong or judging us. This effectively blocks expansion of one personal awareness.
Please, do not judge any lack of knowledge or understanding, just look at it as if this is something they taught at school the day you played hooky or were home sick.
Look at it as discovering a new flavor of Jell-O, or a new beer, wine or as part of an ongoing search for the perfect chocolate mousse* which by the way I found in The South France. They brought it to the table in a huge silver bowl and you could eat as much as you wanted, it was so rich so divine, you could only eat one helping, well maybe a little more than one but that was all. If divine chocolate mousse is not in your awareness, you may be missing one of the truly decadent deserts in the world. You could start a search for things/ideas that are not in your awareness, you will probably discover pleasures and philosophies you never even dreamed existed, I have! Thats when life really started to get interesting.
MENTAL / PHYSICAL PLANE
So lets get back to everything is mental. Everything that exists on the physical plane once existed or originated on the mental or consciousness plane/level.
In other words the building you are in was first a thought. Then people went through steps to create the physical building. I am not implying it "popped" into existence. Everything in physical reality was first a thought...
OPTIONS ONLY EXIST IN CONSCIOUSNESS
The breakthrough concept here is that options only exist in higher mind, or consciousness.
Once something has been created in physical reality most of the options are used up, now all you can do is rearrange it, paint it, use it or destroy it and start over.
PHYSICALLY REALITY IS THE OUTCOME, BY PRODUCT OR FINISHED RESULT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
CONSCIOUSNESS-the real you
Consciousness is the real you, the part of you that notices that you have thoughts, or that you are thinking. It is the part of you that listens to the chatter of your ego mind or lower mind. Consciousness does not talk to itself/yourself [in your head] like the ego mind does. Consciousness makes decisions, acts and then the ego mind chatter comments on these activities. I also call it the 'voice-over".
For example when your body is someplace or doing something that "you" don’t want to do or are resisting. Your Consciousness made the decision to put your body in that situation and your lower mind or chattering ego is resisting it. Before you know this you have NO AWARENESS THAT YOU HAVE A CHOICE, the choice of which one to identify with, which one to "listen to". Lower mind/ego or higher mind/Consciousness. You have the choice to re-choose to be where your body is. You may pretend you don’t have the power to do this, BUT YOU DO! Happiness is a function of choosing to be where your body is always! [see choosing/choice]
Awareness of the absolute fact that you have and ego-mind but "who" you really are is consciousness is the first step to freedom and enlightenment
This awareness opens the doors of perception to higher levels of Consciousness, that otherwise remain closed most likely dooming you to a painful, mundane existence or hell on earth.
Notice JUDGING, GUILT THOUGHTS
It is very difficult for humans to separate the judging, blame, guilt and fear thoughts from events going on in reality. Like not getting paid for your work, your mate yelling at you, or getting your car towed.
If you are judging you for having your car towed, it feels bad and you are probably angry, too. You are doing this to yourself because the guilt is what is making you feel bad but you are blaming your pain on the outside world.
You are thinking blame, this is part of your thought reality
this is not going on in the shared reality
· blame is not real
· judging is not real
· fear is not real
· it is imagined
· it is mental
· blame does not exist
· fault does not exist, there is only cause and effect, action and circumstance.
· IT IS ALL MENTAL.
· You are just pretending it is real because there are feelings associated with it. but the feelings are memories of feelings, no longer true feelings-that feel real.
But you are pretending the towing company, the tow driver or that meter maid is at fault. Even if you are taking the responsibility you are probably also taking the blame and you are physically punishing yourself, causing you distress, stress which is very unhealthy [really like heart attacks, migraines, anxiety, nervous breakdowns, etc.]. .
This is all originating in your head and then affecting your body with memories [tapes] of emotions/pain. The event is most likely passed and now you are sitting in your room alone, punishing yourself or you are on a date trying to feign a smile and pretending to have a good time. While you mind is going "bonkers" and you are agreeing with it, you agree you did something wrong.
This is not the truth, you made a mistake, misjudged, or was already in your head judging yourself about some previous event. You were so busy in your head you were unconscious to the situation-which is probably why you got towed in the first place. Now, you are doing it again, back in your head trying to fix the situation by being more unconscious [and unhealthy]. By being more critical of you. The more critical you get of you, the more unconscious you get, the more mistakes you make, it is a downward spiral. You cannot correct this situation with thoughts, with guilt or any mental contrivance.
There is nothing to figure out.
THE SECRET IS STOP THINKING. STOP TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT. GET OUT OF YOUR MENTAL REALITY, YOUR HEAD. THE PROBLEM IS WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU DO, NOT WHAT YOU DO. FAULT IS A "THINK ABOUT".
The quick fix is start repeating "I forgive me/them/it" and keep doing it till you feel lighter. You can also meditate, count, chant, sing, but forgiveness is the only cure, whether you believe in God, church, Spirituality or the great pumpkin.
A lot of this information and more is available in the self-coaching cd-rom: LIVING IN THE MOMENT. available in the Thinkperfect store.