Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.” — Buddha
Importance of our thoughts
I’ve harped on the fact that our thoughts create our reality and directly affect our experience of life many times today. I do so largely because it’s such an important insight to grasp for life and body transformation.
Yet, in most cases we might understand the concept intellectually but fail to really grab the wisdom and application of this notion. Likewise, an individual may fully understand the concepts of how to gain muscle mass, but if we don’t apply what we understand, then there’ll be no biological change.
Thus, knowing that your thoughts create your reality is of little use to you, unless you take complete control of your mind and think the thoughts that will lead you to action and your own desires. When what you KNOW and what you DO become congruent with one another, then you’ll have more than understanding… you may have WISDOM!
It’s been estimated that the average man thinks over 60,000 ideas a day and lots of those ideas are older, repetitive thoughts they have been thinking for quite a while.
How many individuals do you think are truly conscious of each of these thoughts that they’re thinking?
How many individuals do you think have consciously chosen the vast majority of ideas that enter their thoughts?
Many individuals have expressed a issue with not having the ability to stop thinking. They have problems concentrating and staying focused. They lie awake at night, ideas pouring through their heads… worries, anxieties, tasks needing done, anticipation of things to come, you get the idea.
They’ve lost control of their thoughts. Their mind is currently controlling them. So, lots of men and women turn to the most recent drug they see on tv and look for the solution in a pill.
Over-thinking
“The biggest disease of the head is over-thinking… Thinking too much is like eating too much. The heaviness makes it impossible to stay flexible and light.”
Are you in charge of your mind? Remember, the mind is only a tool for us to utilize. We should be the ones in control of it, harnessing its power for realizing our intended purposes.
Yet a large part of humanity has become slaves to their thoughts. The brain uses them, wears them down, wears them out. In actuality, the sad truth is that the majority of individuals are so enslaved by their heads they believe the mind is that they are. They’re completely identified with it, with their ideas and their beliefs. They’ve become like sleepwalkers, lost in the illusion of the dream.
Yet that is the natural process of our development. You should first be asleep… in order to wake up! When we’re born into this body we were born into an illusion and several people haven’t attained the level of consciousness where we see this illusion for what it is.
You’re not your ideas and beliefs! They are just passing forms of energy such as the weather or the clouds. Likewise you’re not your mind. These also are passing forms of energy. Your body will break down and one day dissolve back into the ground from which it came.
You’re the essence of which is beyond all forms. What you are is the understanding where these items may exist. You’re the area of awareness where these ideas may transpire, but you’re not the thoughts. Thoughts are just recycled information and also your own body is recycled earth. Thoughts, like your mind, are only tools of development.
Meditation to control our mind
This is where meditation may be used. You can use meditation to take back control of your mind, to clear the mind of uncontrollable thoughts and the water, so to speak. Meditation may also be used to access the subconscious and tap into the deeper wisdom that lies beyond the realm of our conscious mind.
By taking advantage of meditation and incorporating it into our everyday routine we can efficiently reduce the amount of thoughts we’re thinking daily by stilling the mind. This then opens us up to a whole new world that’s free from the often repetitive and negative thoughts that before cluttered our consciousness and muddled our understanding of reality.
By eliminating these unnecessary and excessive thought patterns we also enhance the effectiveness of the other techniques we’ll use for influencing and harnessing the energy our subconscious mind. When one is thinking less arbitrary, and dull thoughts, the thoughts they have purposely chosen to think will have more of an effect on changing their truth.
Meditation is a very simple practice. However, just as it is simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. Your thoughts will try everything in its power to distract you, to convince you that this is a waste of time, to tempt you back to the subconscious thought patterns which are keeping you trapped and enslaved by it.
It will shout and beg for you to leave this dumb meditation practice: “Why waste your time just sitting here, once you could do something?” it will rationalize.
In most people’s cases it will win, but for the few that continue to push ahead… their lives won’t ever be the same. In the beginning, you might not notice much difference, but after some time and dedication to the discipline (not as long as you think) you will discover a new quality to your own consciousness. You’ll have greater focus, clarity, peacefulness, and insightfulness arising within your daily experience.
This ability to become fully present is what is known as mindfulness in Zen and you’ll start to have a deeper knowledge of your true nature. You will start seeing things, not as you believe they are, but as they really are beyond the filter of your ideas, beliefs, personal opinions and biases.
In a world that was once dead for you, there’ll be breathed a new breath of life. In this moment, you will wake up and you’ll never be a sleepwalker again.
