A helpful, ego-dissolving mantra

Filed under Notes on 22. May 2007 » Comments

I haven’t had much experience with using mantras, but lately I’ve been using a particular pointer I like as a mantra almost inadvertently. Not in the manner of repeating it over and over again to replace mental noise, but it is something I find helpful to repeat frequently over the course of a day, once every 15 minutes or so. It simply says: “I want nothing for myself.”

Contemplating this, the possibility of wanting nothing for myself, is a way of breaking the old conditioned habit of always being in the mode of asking “what’s in it for me?” I suspect that my conditioning is unusually heavy on this particular dysfunction, and so experiencing the shift into wanting to be of service, of wanting to give rather than wanting to take, or have, brings an incredible sense of relief.

The reason why it gives me such relief is that the habitual mode of perceiving, of always having an underlying motivation of wanting something for myself, is a major part of the egoic function. It is the backbone of the survival mechanism, always churning away trying to spot opportunities to extract some kind of gain from the world of form. Wanting something for ‘myself’ implies wanting something for my personal self, which is the ego. And because this way of thinking is based on the assumption that I am a separate entity in a world of competing entities, there is a built-in sense of tension that goes with it.

Now, it is important to know that the pointer, or mantra, is not saying that you should give away all your belongings and never acquire anything ever again. It’s fine to prefer red apples to green ones, or whatever, and it’s also fine to want this sweater or that book, etc. The function of it is to break the habitual pattern of thinking by reducing your self-importance so to speak. If I recall correctly, Jesus is to have said “deny thyself.” And what I take it to mean is basically the same as “want nothing for yourself,” namely to starve the ego of importance, not give it any reality and simply allow it to fade away.

When I contemplate wanting nothing for myself, I start to see the world in a different light. Everything becomes clear, because things and situations are no longer being seen through the layers of egoic bias and distortion, and everything seems to flow more smoothly. All your problems and dilemmas simply dissolve when you’re not thinking about what you want for yourself, and you may even begin to lose interest in personal gain — the pleasure of something is then seen as paling in comparison to the joy of nothing.

Give it a try and, whenever you remember, repeat the mantra “I want nothing for myself.” Contemplate it, meditate on it, allow it to work its way into your daily awareness and see what happens.

Not saying anything anymore

Filed under Notes on 27. March 2007 » Comments

I’m now going to present you with what will probably be perceived as a rather unusual pointer, a silly little meditation technique that sounds too simple to be effective. But as you know, a pointer doesn’t necessarily have to make sense to the thinking mind; it’s meant to trigger a deeper sense of knowing than rational thought can ever provide you with.

This pointer, or meditation technique, is to focus with vigilance on not saying anything, focusing intently on not speaking at all. Even going so far as to contemplate never uttering a single word ever again. Acting as if you were suddenly unable to speak.

The point of this exercise is not to stop speaking forever, but to entertain the possibility as a means of connecting to stillness. What happens when you do this is that the reactive entity in you, the ego, is made redundant in one of its main areas of function. In most people, most of the time, the act of speaking is heavily influenced by patterns of conditioned reaction, connected to the stream of compulsive thought that is so characteristic of the normal human state of consciousness.

When you focus on not speaking, you may even notice that your tongue and facial muscles suddenly become more relaxed. There is also a sense of stillness and silence, because the mind automatically quiets down and lets down its defenses. A large part of our conditioned thinking is verbal and subvocalized, in that we talk to ourselves using words and may even whisper or talk out loud without noticing. Because of this connection between mental noise and the act of speaking, contemplating the cessation of speaking is a powerful way of cutting off the reactive patterns of thinking.

So however silly it may sound, focusing intently on not saying anything can be a very practical meditation tool, and a useful pointer to stillness in the midst of everyday life.

The value of meditation

Filed under Notes on 23. January 2007 » Comments [1]

A Course in Miracles says in its discussion on detachment from worldly values:

“Your whole perspective on the world will shift by just a little, every time you let your mind escape its chains.”

And when I read this, I realized that it is a very accurate description of the process of spiritual awakening as experienced by most people. For some, the chains will break off once and for all in a blast of realizations, as in the case of teachers like Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle, but for most people it is a matter of iteration. Two steps forward, one step back, repeat. This is a process that many of you will probably be familiar with, the process of realizing a deep truth, see a quick glimpse of freedom, and then getting lost in the world again. And although you may be tempted at this point to think ‘easy come, easy go,’ you will find on further inspection that you haven’t really become entirely lost again. Every time you glimpse freedom, your level of awareness heightens by just a little, and when repeated over and over again the light of consciousness starts to gain more and more momentum. It will be difficult at first, but once your level of awareness reaches a certain tipping point, characterized mainly by your outlook having become predominantly positive, your practice will become easy, playful, and almost effortless.

At times you will experience giant leaps forward, for example after having just gone through a great deal of suffering, but most of the time it is a matter of patiently repeating your practice and heightening your level of consciousness in small steps. And this, as I see it, is the true practical value of meditation, because even if you only have 15 minutes of peaceful introspection in a day otherwise filled with noise and activity, your awareness will gradually become higher and higher as you go along.