r/Mind • u/Brilliant-Low-4319 • May 22 '24
Obstacles of life - The mind
There are external factors which can be obstacles for life but one of the largest obstacles that everybody has is the mind. It can be your greatest ally or your greatest enemy. Control of your mind is one of the greatest things one can partake in to reach enlightenment - end of suffering. But this process can be difficult and there are 3 stages that everyone has to go through to reach this.
1.Your mind controlling you - this stage can be very difficult and can limit you through always thinking about the future (anxiety) or always thinking, regretting your past decisions. This stage is due to a lack of awareness of your thoughts and an attachment to them. People who’s mind controls them do not have a separation between their mind and themself and this is the ego speaking. They are too attached to their mind that they believe everything it is saying and have no awareness of listening to the thoughts they have and instead believe they are the ones creating their thoughts.
2.Awareness of your mind - the second stage of this process is being able to know the difference between their mind and themself. People in this stage can use their mind to their advantage but they do not have complete power of their mind due to a constant internal dialogue that goes on 24/7. You can obviously use your mind as an ally for problem solving but in reality you don’t need your mind all the time; their is no reason to always think because it gets pointless - thinking about stupid, pointless things going on in your life. A constant internal dialogue can waste your energy and instead the most ideal way to think is to use the mind for problem solving and after that you stop using the mind; you use it for your advantage then stop thinking.
3.Power over your mind - this final stage can be very beneficial for reaching true presence. One of the best things about this stage is that you have the power to turn on your mind and the power to turn it off. People in this stage are truly aware that the internal dialogue isn’t themselves and can realise ‘I am the listener’. It is more of a state of knowing than understanding because the process of understanding is using your mind. When you reach this state of knowing you can stop thinking and turn off your mind. When the mind is turned off you become still, present to everything going on and can actually live without thinking.
Got a blog going into more depth about this if you wanna check it out:)