This concluding lesson puts you on the path to mental health.
Your consciousness has an actionable will that exceeds that of your monkey-mind. If that were not so, enlightenment would be impossible.
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The hallmarks of madness are nattermind in overdrive and being consumed by inner demons. You’ve seen people on the street uncontrollably talking to themselves. The unrelenting conversation is with their own monkey-mind.
Less striking but still disturbing mental illnesses are displays of selfishness, emotionalism, narrow-mindedness, flights of fantasy, and dragging the past into the present.
Contrastingly, mental health is characterized by acute awareness, spontaneity, general contentment, comity, and dealing with what is.
The distinction between the mental illness and health is stark – a division based entirely on the permission of monkey-mind to poison well-being.
Not knowing better, you let your monkey-mind run wild: indulging sentiment and emotion, enjoying daydreams, worrying.
Perhaps you have tried to dismiss negative thoughts. That helps, but it is not sufficient.
The skill of enlightenment is domesticating the mind: teaching it to mind its manners and be quiet unless called upon.
Mental illness is a drag on productivity and enjoyment. True spirituality is the epitome of practicality.
The reason you want to be enlightened in the first place is that your mind bothers you. If you were content and your mind quiet, you’d already be enlightened.
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Forget the ignorant notions of psychologists who believe that the conscious mind can be a productive partner, or what you may have learned from religious texts.
There is no need for conscious thought. Every thought is a diversion from being present, and so a theft of awareness.
You cannot use the mind to reason which thoughts to float and which should be sunk. English musician George Harrison: “Watch out now, take care, beware of thoughts that linger, winding up inside your head.” Harbor no thoughts. Dismiss them.
Religions have no insights to offer. Nisargadatta Maharaj: “Give up all this trash, whatever you are studying in the name of religion, in the name of spirituality. Understand only one thing: that consciousness at present is your nature – you are that only.”
Do not blind yourself with belief, hoping things will get better. Beliefs never help. They can only hurt. Believe nothing.
Monkey-mind is not your friend. There are no concepts that help usher you to enlightenment. You cannot think your way to mental health.
If you want to be aware of actuality as it is, rather than what nattermind wants you to believe, you need to put yourself on a strict regimen of healthy mentation, subconsciously done.
Feelings are intuitions stuffed with subconscious consideration. Good stuff. Nattermind takes those feelings and whips them into emotions, which addicts the ignorant to a high drama diet. Instantly dismiss all emotions.
Live completely in the moment. The only decent employments of memory are skill acquisition or to entertain others. Sentiment is for saps.
Do not indulge in daydreams or flights of imagination. Do what is necessary, what brings satisfaction, and otherwise just enjoy being alive.
Altering consciousness in any way that dims awareness is just dousing the mind with stupidity. Alcohol and cannabis are perennial self-medications that only stupefy. No spiritual seeker uses such substances.
Nattermind feeds off stimulation. Do not feed your monkey-mind. You cannot discover the meadow of contentment on the shoals of thrills. Don’t seek thrills.
Living involves constantly swimming in a stream of desires. Chose to pursue those wants which are positive, productive, and may open doors to future opportunities.
Keep in mind that success and failure are just construals, not facts. Any such measure is mere perspective. Any supposed failure is merely the price of an education.
Do not fear outcomes, but do assess their probability, and their potential. Regardless of outcome, consider what may be achieved in terms of skill acquisition.
As you already know, living is regularly hit-or-miss. Take setbacks in stride and move on. You cannot change the past. Leave it behind. The adventure continues.
Nattermind will resist its subjugation, using its considerable wiles. Skill takes will. Persist. You can subdue the mind into quietude.
Nattermind isn’t stupid. If your will is resolute, nattermind will obey and quiet down.
Improve your fluidity in psychospace. If you feel sucked into a situation, fearful or stressed out, mentally pull back and assess how you can be as graceful as possible.
Meaning is just a subjective appraisal. Significance is merely a reading of the mind’s measly meter of how disturbed it is. What matters is only what you make matter. Care or don’t care – just don’t let it ruffle your feathers if something goes wrong. Disasters happen. At any rate, it’s all just a play of concepts.
Mortality is just a cosmic parlor game. Nothing really lives or dies. Your life adventure is for your entertainment. Live life to the fullest by enjoying each moment, even the mundane ones.
The process of becoming enlightened is reversing the dominance of nattermind for willmind. Practicing transcendence is essential to habituating quietude. The ultimate aim is to live transcendentally: full awareness without interruption from an inner interloper.
As you spiritually progress, you will notice that your emotions stop raging on you. Nattermind’s interruptions become less frequent. Your focus improves. You feel calmer, especially in situations that used to feel stressful.
You may find that others’ ignorance is a sufferance you no longer care to bear. Accept no false responsibilities.
The spiritual path is a solitary pursuit. Few indeed have the self-discipline to pursue the ultimate skill. Nisargadatta Maharaj: “The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings, for it destroys the world in which you live.”
Enlightenment is a springboard of abiding contentment. Its attainment opens the door to greater connectivity between your individual consciousness and universal Ĉonsciousness. This refined conduit of clarity provides an ongoing potpourri of intuitions and insights. Higher levels of consciousness make living easier and much richer.
You will never banish nattermind, because nattermind is an integral part of the mind. That is by design – to present life’s supreme challenge. A tamed monkey-mind reminds you that have gained the ultimate skill.
Everything that has ever given you a sense of satisfaction was not easily attained. Achievement – though shiny on the outside – has a core of struggle within it. We seek challenges as a metric of vitality.
Maharaj: “Compared to self-realization all else is meaningless.”
If ignorance were not so irritable, escaping it would not be so compelling. If enlightenment were easy, its value would be diminished. We are built for self-realization, with the caveat that getting there is the greatest challenge of all.