This article will be of much greater value if you have read my little eBook, “All IS Mind” available on entrepreneurmonk.com/books or have taken the course. However, even if you have not, you may find great value in what is written.
Briefly to give people unfamiliar with this work enough background to understand it, one of the aspects of the All IS Mind work is that we have three minds; Body, Ego, Wisdom. We are not one being, but rather three individual and separate beings living in one body. Those three minds each have their own desires and preferences, as well as fears or things they would rather avoid. Our life is a constant swing between the desires of each of those minds, as they often conflict.
The Body mind is the basic animal with its desires and fears, get pleasure, avoid pain, eat sleep and reproduce. The Ego mind is our formed personality, who you are, religion, culture, language, opinions and all the other things that make you you. The Wisdom mind is what people refer to as the soul, higher self, spark of divine light, etc. This mind is what pushes a person to become more than they are, to rise above the petty human actions. It drives us with the questions of ‘Why am I here?” and “There must be more to life.”
The body mind has the most power. It is the gross matter part of our being, and thus in this world, it is the most powerful as it is the closest to the material realm.
Its desires are food, clothing, shelter and sex thus we are driven to provide for our material needs, hence the drive for money and success, as well as relationships, as that provides sex and companionship. Companionship serves another purpose which is protection when one is sick or injured and inevitably old and in need of help to survive.
The body mind drives normal people’s lives. Despite what anyone says, you can find the essence of their actions in the body mind’s desires.
The wisdom mind is what propels a person to discover more to life, that there is a greater reason or continuation of our individual existence, and material life on earth is not all there is.
The ego mind, in this example, has no desires, it is merely the horse which pulls the cart of one of the other two minds in the direction either of them wants to go.
The ego mind may think that it has its own thoughts and desires, but in fact, if we examine anything that drives us, it will come from either the body or the wisdom mind. The ego mind is the personality which gives the body life and direction or expresses the desires of the wisdom mind to create and evolve.
A person with a strong body mind will do everything to acquire more material possessions as that serves their animal desires. When the wisdom mind is strong enough to guide the actions of a person, then life may take some strange turns.
We know that everyone often acts irrationally and against what we think is in our best interest. There is also the concept of destiny. We must choose if we believe that things are pre-destined or not and this chosen opinion guides a person in their actions or view of the events in their life. Believing in a fixed destiny allows for blind faith, which may be good or bad, you decide.
If the body and wisdom mind are in battle for control over how we live our life, meaning the experiences and actions that we will have while alive, then the ego mind will be torn as to what decisions it should make, and thus feel confusion. Do I go after things that give me pleasure, or things that may be difficult but will make me a better person.
Clarity is happiness, confusion causes suffering.
If either mind is very strong and the other very weak, a person will be very clear. This explains why hedonists, selfish, greedy or crooked people can be so clear and thus happy. Their body mind is so strong and their wisdom mind is so weak, they have no conflict. Due to the power the body mind has, even if your wisdom mind is strong and pulling you in the direction it wants, your body mind will give it a good fight. This is why people who are drawn to the spiritual search often suffer and still get nowhere or at least not too far as they feel the pull of the wisdom mind but follow the body mind’s desires.
There are many people who give themselves license to be promiscuous for example, under the excuse that they are opening their heart, practicing non-attachment or non-duality and are not possessive so they can sleep with anyone any time they like. The test is when their partner sleeps around on them, how do they react.
There is a Sufi saying; “God gives the most difficult life to the one He loves the most.” If emotional freedom leads to spiritual realization, we must be released from the factors that control our emotions. This explains that the apparent difficulties in life are actually and sub-consciously self created.
I tend to speak from my experience as that is real, so forgive me if this sounds like my ego speaking, but rather take it as learning from my personal experience rather than from some ancient story that may have no relevance in your life.
I was so poor when I was young I would not eat at times to save money. I built up a capital base of about $2 million by the time I was 28 and then proceeded to loose it over the next decade. That sounds strange, but in fact, what really sounds strange is that I chose to do this.
Since I was five years old, I knew about the spiritual realm and devoted my life to getting as close as I could to becoming enlightened. Daily, I would talk to God, whatever God may be, and pledged that I am devoted to my becoming the best person I could be. I had envisioned making a fortune and using that to help people. I had never thought that achieving my goal meant loosing it. Of course, I am talking about me, which means your path may be totally different.
The wisdom mind is strong and can create what may look like bad luck. The factors related to my goal are vital to understand to explain the turn of events from 20 years of building a fortune with every move being successful, (I was nicknamed King Midas) to every move being a disaster.
What keeps us tied to the material realm and subject to the body mind desires is our attachment to material possessions for our physical survival. This controls our moods and emotions. Clearly, our happiness and sadness are related to our successes and failures, or being alone or in a good relationship, be that sexual or plutonic.
The wisdom mind is related to our spiritual eternal reality, thus the things of the world have no relevance to its evolution. However, this means there is no point to human existence, and that makes no sense or we would not be here.
So the point of life for the wisdom mind could possibly be to evolve past the control of our emotions so that we can get the emotional nature functioning in a clean way towards love rather than ruled by fear or personal desires. In order to do this we need faith that all will work out no matter what is happening so that we can be free of fears and grasping.
The only way to do this, since we would not consciously undergo difficulties, is to have it happen beyond our control. If I told you to spend 20 years working constantly to build a fortune then spend the next 10 years loosing it in the most difficult ways, would you willingly do that?
This is where the wisdom mind uses fragmentation and buffers to get us into situations in which we will get troubles so that we can be swung up and down until we learn that down is followed by up and up is followed by down, eternally. We do not fall into panic at a solar eclipse because we know the sun will shine again, but what if you didn’t know that?
Life is filled with suffering because we do not see the other side of the wave, the body mind is very short sighted. Life becomes blissful when we see the shore beyond the many waves cresting in the distance and trust that the boat will be kept afloat.
Learn to trust this ‘boat’ by looking back over your life and seeing how it has carried you so far without sinking, even though it may have become full of water at times and you feared you would drown in the difficulties of life. I guarantee that you will find it has kept you afloat, otherwise you would already be dead.
When you trust that all will work out and you will be fine, and the end will see you leaving everything behind anyway, then your wisdom mind will have taken control over the body mind and you will see the world in a very different way, objectively and without fear or suffering. You will have attained Balance and can finally truly enjoy life.
I will leave you with a little image that will make you happy in even the most difficult times.
Imagine that you have been given one month to live, the date of your death is fixed and set exactly 30 days from today.
Now you can drive as fast as you want and park anywhere. You no longer care if you get speeding or parking tickets. You will travel and eat in the best restaurants, using your credit cards to the max, you don’t have to pay the bill. Life is great, you can enjoy it all and have a great time because you are free, there are no bills to pay or old age to plan for.
Eventually, everything becomes irrelevant. The ironic part of this is that when you know it, even what is relevant becomes very light and easy to bear.
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