Then, be in the “now”
When you are younger both might be a little confusing. Be in the “now”: when you are chewing your food concentrate on chewing.
But you see all of you and what you become is because of your mind. If you don’t know how your mind turns or have control over it, then one might live in the dark for a large part of your life and then ask the question: “what is the purpose of life” and still be pondering in the dark.
I feel that if you have control over the mind and know what are the tools to use it when you need it and shut it down when you need a rest and know when it is lying to you or telling you the Truth, then the purpose will come to you sooner than later.
So I found that when I was able to control my mind better, to know when it is lying to me, and to be able to see the Truth in me as to the lie in me, created by my own mind in imagination and perception but not allowing me to see that it is a lie, is when one is contaminated by so many illusions that the purpose will never come off this data, or personality.
I made a couple of discoveries of my mind that changed things where I had better control over my mind. I could switch it off anytime I wanted. Turn it on when I needed it. Not use it for a whole day and only live in the silence of the mind and know what it means to not have thinking bother me for a whole day.
What I discovered was this: I realise that there was an anomaly in me, that I always had to silently speak what I was thinking for me to have to think at all. If I was not simultaneously speaking what I was thinking then I cannot think. It is as if my brain had to hear what I was thinking to know what I want of it. My mind stops and becomes silent when I break this link. I then function only by observation or of only being aware of what is around me but no thinking or perception or imagination as none of this is possible without me also silently speaking while I am spinning an idea in my head.
You know it is the same with reading: if you don’t silently speak what you are reading or writing then it is difficult to decipher what you are reading or writing. (I gather that the Chinese language is pictorial in nature and they read like one would read a painting to try and understand what is said in their Chinese characters. But the alphabet readers need to go to a dictionary to know for the meaning of the word and have to silently read a sentence to know its meaning)
Hence keeping in mind the purpose of life: if one cannot recognise the Truth from the lies created in me by my mind then how am I going to figure out the correct purpose of life or to any problem for that matter. Anything and everything depends on this fact in you that you might not know about. Project managers take note, designers, architects, city planners, Doctors, anybody, everybody, including the crazies before you do something you will regret – you can have control over your mind if you know how to stop and start it. Know what the mind does. Know the Truths from the lies it creates in you.
If I look at the word cat – an image appears in my mind, or cat running up the tree – my mind is making a different image for the sentence compared to the word, cat. Both images seem to be true in me. Both are facts.
Then there is perception and understanding.
Some things in the head are true and some are a lie or an illusion:
Cat is true,
Cat running up the tree is also true, not a lie because I can see a Cat running up the tree,
But a cat sitting in the white house as president is imagination, an illusion in the Truth in me, which is just the Cat, or the Cat running up the tree.
I think what is important is that we know what is what: is it an illusion in us or the Truth.
The mind can make an illusion with creativity and imagination But the Truth will always be TRUE, not an idea or a lie created by imagination.
I think if we make a lie in our minds and then pretend or think it is True – that is where the problem is.
If we take too many lies in us and make personality – then that personality is an illusion or a lie.
If a politician takes all the lie’s in him/her, thinking they are all true, and make laws to create society:
Then you know what will be happening: we will all be running for cover.
Hence taking care in understanding the base function of the mind is crucial I think to many things we do so we know that the end result is part of the Truth of things rather than an illusion masquerading as a Truth. This is this and that is that. This is a Truth and that is a lie in me. Some might say that the lie in us might show us some greater Truths? But a lie or an illusion created by the mind is still a lie. It has its place in your mind but it does not sit with the Truth of things. You know that if you follow only the Truth in you or in your mind, the purpose of life might come clearer and sooner to you.
With these tools of being able to stop and start up your thinking mind and using psychological thinking when you need to and stop it when you don’t is really now being able to use that powerhouse of a computer on your head to work for you instead of letting it control you.
Don’t underestimate the silent mind. There are still gems to be got from the silent unthinking mind. A silent mind has access to the vast repository of knowledge stored in consciousness which is only accessible when the mind is quiet. They appear as pop-ups. Always something new which does not correlate with your experiential past allowing you the possibility of a giant leap forward which did not come from a thinking mind but a mind that was doing nothing and silent. Most would discard this information as it is not in their past in mind to give it meaning. (a cautionary note here: there is a synthetic ether in existence coming off the artificial structure of the city that is creating a vibratory ether in your living space and is competing with the natural consciousness and these days it is difficult to decide where these pop-ups have come from. The synthetic repository is like the internet carrying information that does not follow the natural laws of nature. There is the danger of perception being altered by this synthetic consciousness and so this adds another obstacle to the “know thyself” dilemma.)
Keep the body healthy. Don’t let epigenetics to program you with your bad habits. Test and know that initiating thinking might just be sub-vocal speech. If you don’t silently speak what you think – then you cannot think at all. Use this anomaly to shut down your mind anytime you want, to give it a rest, just like a cross-legged meditator might do when one uses the mantra. You then have a kind of walking talking kind of meditative technique you can use anytime. This kind of control over the mind, after some practice, would be an excellent tool for students studying for a “purpose in life”.
Is “knowing thyself” enough of a big project in one’s life to be the purpose of a lifetime, while going about your other purposes in life? Like Art, or having a dialogue with the process of making Art to “Know Thyself” better and to find out what the purpose of life is all about?