YOU ARE NOT YOUR MIND
THE GREATEST OBSTACLE TO ENLIGHTENMENT
Enlightenment - what is that?
A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years. One day a stranger
walked by. "Spare some change?" mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old
baseball cap. "I have nothing to give you," said the stranger. Then he asked: "What's that you
are sitting on?" "Nothing," replied the beggar. "Just an old box. I have been sitting on it for as
long as I can remember." "Ever looked inside?" asked the stranger. "No," said the beggar.
"What's the point? There's nothing in there." "Have a look inside," insisted the stranger. The
beggar managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the
box was filled with gold.
I am that stranger who has nothing to give you and who is telling you to look inside. Not
inside any box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer inside yourself.
"But I am not a beggar," I can hear you say.
Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the
deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material
wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security,
or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all those things but is
infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.
The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and
the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being.
It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something
that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding
your true nature beyond name and form. The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to
the illusion of separation, from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive
yourself, consciously or unconsciously, as an isolated fragment. Fear arises, and conflict
within and without becomes the norm.
I love the Buddha's simple definition of enlightenment as "the end of suffering." There is
nothing superhuman in that, is there? Of course, as a definition, it is incomplete. It only tells
you what enlightenment is not: no suffering. But what's left when there is no more suffering?
The Buddha is silent on that, and his silence implies that you'll have to find out for yourself.
He uses a negative definition so that the mind cannot make it into something to believe in or
into a superhuman accomplishment, a goal that is impossible for you to attain. Despite this
precaution, the majority of Buddhists still believe that enlightenment is for the Buddha, not
for them, at least not in this lifetime.
You used the word Being. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject
to birth and death. However, Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its
innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as
your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp it with your mind. Don't try
to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when
your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be under-
stood mentally. To regain awareness of Being and to abide in that state of "feeling-
realization" is enlightenment.
§
When you say Being, are you talking about God? If you are, then why don't you say it?
The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse. I use it
sometimes, but I do so sparingly. By misuse, I mean that people who have never even
glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind that word, use it with great con-
viction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or they argue against it, as if they knew
what it is that they are denying. This misuse gives rise to absurd beliefs, assertions, and egoic
delusions, such as "My or our God is the only true God, and your God is false," or Nietzsche's
famous statement "God is dead."
The word God has become a closed concept. The moment the word is uttered, a mental
image is created, no longer, perhaps, of an old man with a white beard, but still a mental
representation of someone or something outside you, and, yes, almost inevitably a male
someone or something.
Neither God nor Being nor any other word can define or explain the ineffable reality
behind the word, so the only important question is whether the word is a help or a hindrance
in enabling you to experience That toward which it points. Does it point beyond itself to that
transcendental reality, or does it lend itself too easily to becoming no more than an idea in
your head that you believe in, a mental idol?
The word Being explains nothing, but nor does God. Being, however, has the advantage
that it is an open concept. It does not reduce the infinite invisible to a finite entity. It is
impossible to form a mental image of it. Nobody can claim exclusive possession of Being. It
is your very essence, and it is immediately accessible to you as the feeling of your own
presence, the realization I am that is prior to I am this or I am that. So it is only a small step
from the word Being to the experience of Being.
§
What is the greatest obstacle to experiencing this reality?
Identification with your mind, which causes thought to become compulsive. Not to be able
to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybody
is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you
from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being. It also creates a
false mind-made self that casts a shadow of fear and suffering. We will look at all that in
more detail later.
The philosopher Descartes believed that he had found the most fundamental truth when
he made his famous statement: "I think, therefore I am." He had, in fact, given expression to
the most basic error to equate thinking with Being and identity with thinking. The compulsive
thinker, which means almost everyone, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in an
insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflict, a world that reflects the ever-
increasing fragmentation of the mind. Enlightenment is a state of wholeness, of being "at
one" and therefore at peace. At one with life in its manifested aspect, the world, as well as
with your deepest self and life unmanifested - at one with Being. Enlightenment is not only
the end of suffering and of continuous conflict within and without, but also the end of the
dreadful enslavement to incessant thinking. What an incredible liberation this is!
Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images,
words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and
yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between
you and God. It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion
that there is you and a totally separate "other." You then forget the essential fact that,
underneath the level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that is.
By "forget," I mean that you can no longer feel this oneness as self-evident reality. You may
believe it to be true, but you no longer know it to be true. A belief may be comforting. Only
through your own experience, however, does it become liberating.
Thinking has become a disease. Disease happens when things get out of balance. For
example, there is nothing wrong with cells dividing and multiplying in the body, but when
this process continues in disregard of the total organism, cells proliferate and we have
disease.
The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes
very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind
wrongly - you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease. You believe that
you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.
I don't quite agree. It is true that I do a lot of aimless thinking, like most people, but I can still choose
to use my mind to get and accomplish things, and I do that all the time.
Just because you can solve a crossword puzzle or build an atom bomb doesn't mean that
you use your mind. Just as dogs love to chew bones, the mind loves to get its teeth into
problems. That's why it does crossword puzzles and builds atom bombs. You have, no inter-
est in either. Let me ask you this: can you be free of your mind whenever you want to?
Have you found the "off" button?
You mean stop thinking altogether? No, I can't, except maybe for a moment or two.
Then the mind is using you. You are unconsciously identified with it, so you don't even know
that you are its slave. It’s almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you
take the possessing entity to be yourself. The beginning of freedom is the realization that you
are not the possessing entity - the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity.
The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes
activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought,
that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that
truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You
begin to awaken.
This is from Chapter 1 of Eckhart Tolle's book : The Power of Now. You can read it free here: www.baytallaah.com/bookspdf/51.pdf
24 May 2012, 6:07 am
