" THAT'S ALL IN YOUR MIND "

Have you ever had that said to you - or said it to someone else?

When a thought arises in our mind there is a first automatic belief that it is true. It's a bit like in the law - a thought is assumed innocent until proven guilty! 

Thoughts are usually assumed true unless, on reflection, they are discarded as false.

We may question our thoughts - but we start from the position of them being true. 

Why is this? 

In the experience of the body-mind-world we must of course use thinking to navigate day-to-day life, but perhaps there is a deeper dimension to who we are that has a far wider perspective and therefore an infinitely greater ability to guide us?

We spend so much of our time 'in our mind', we mostly don't even notice our intuitive voice that is constantly nudging us. In fact we tend to ignore it even when it gently tugs at us because we have been taught to place so much importance on thinking without our teachers ever realising how limited is the capacity of the mind to perceive and access the whole picture. 

During a visit to the Oxford Ashmolean Museum once, I came across the rooms displaying artefacts from man's 'prehistory', the time before written records, and it was fascinating to see how the earliest humans focused only on finding food, procreating and preserving their security. Our needs were that simple back then, and our minds were too. Over time, our minds have evolved and remarkable advances in understanding and technology have been achieved. But with this growth in capacity and complexity has also come increased mental suffering. Why is this?

Our thinking is still motivated by the same primordial instincts for survival, and this creates a huge amount of stress, but now, for most of us, particularly in the developed countries, the stress has become far more intellectual. We no longer simply compete for physical survival, we now compete on many levels; physically, socially and economically. The mind responds to this by seeking that which it associates with safety and success, which are of course predominantly self-interested. This mutates into selfishness, and a desire for power. Along with this intense self-focus an inflated ego-identification can develop, and then, because ultimately our life situation, physical body and beliefs are essentially fragile in this totally unpredictable life, there builds a continuous underlying fear of failure or loss. This creates doubt and confusion, leading to irrational beliefs and an ever-more reactive mind response - all contributing to mental disorder.

The priority for many in modern society has been placed on intellectual superiority. We have, as a result, lost touch with our intuitive natural inner voice. 

Our thinking mind is a fantastic tool, but for many it has brought imbalance, with the result - a kind of insanity. Everything destructive we inflict on ourselves and our planet has come from the mind gone mad. 

One only need look at the suffering in this world to see the truth of that statement. Our planet can easily provide food for the entire population, yet hundreds die every day from starvation. Wars are being fought all over the globe at any given moment. We consume vast quantities of drugs, both legal and illegal, in an attempt to cure or alleviate the mental torture of a dysfunctional mind.

What we need is re-balancing - a realisation that we have lost touch with our inner guide, the 'being', in the human-being. 

John