The practice of auto observation

[krya]

Like explained in the thread” how to deal with negative thoughts in your mind ” (thread I wrote few years ago). It is important to learn how to release the negative thoughts which comes into our aura, in our mental field.

Blocking a negative thought doesn’t help in getting rid of that thought. Blocking a thought is a mental action which only puts the thought aside, but that thought goes no far away from your mental body. It will still be there in your mental field. That means the blocked thought doesn’t leave you completely even if it seems like it is no longer present in the screen of your consciousness. The blocked thought automatically joins the sub consciousness zone of your mental body, where it will wait the appropriate moment for it to come to the surface of your consciousness again. This is how the same thoughts come back again and again to our consciousness. How many times an anxious thought has gotten stuck in the mind, repeating many time in our mind, even when we willingly remove it?

We all understand that it doesn’t help to have negative thoughts neither during daily activities or during our meditation sessions. But that should not be the reason for us to brutally try to get rid of them by blocking them. Let’s get rid of them, fine! but doing this wisely would be the thing to do. When blocking the thought, you are putting the thought in a mental cage, and that thought will soon get out of that cage as soon as you lose your vigilance. This could even happen while you are sleeping. If you for example block sexual mental images you might have running in your mind, they will try and come back when you sleep, and you will call it an impure dream. This is no real dream, it is just your brain memory of the thoughts which happened while you the consciousness were away from your body. Why put the negative thought in your mental prison, when you could actually throw it outside of your mental body? You can throw a thought out of your mental body every time it comes in, until it gets tired and goes find some other minds out there to bother.

All unwanted negative thoughts come to our mind in an automatic way and this is when we are not paying attention. All our automatic motions in the mental body (thoughts), in the astral(emotions, feelings, desires), and physical body, are caused by our subconsciousness. The subconsciousness produces all types of automatic vibrations, thoughts: emotions and sudden gestures. The key to come to modify the way the vibrations manifest or to even prevent them from happening is possible thanks to the practice of auto observation. Auto observation is a quality of our true self, of our consciousness. The negative automatic thoughts which automatically comes to our mind, are like the cockroaches and rats which leaves underground, in the darkness areas of our home. Those things only comes out when it is dark, when there is no light. As soon as there is light, those rats and cockroaches starts to run away to look for dark areas. This is the situation with our thoughts. To observe thoughts happening in the mind is like to switch on the lights in the mind. Once the lights are On, the negative thoughts like rats will run away from your lightened mind, they will go look for people with dark mind. So they don't stay in your mind. however to block the thoughts is not to chase them away but just put the rats in a cage in your home.

When I say blocking a thought, I’m referring to "stopping the train of your negative thought". Here is an example, you find yourself thinking something like “The next time that guy says something like that to me, I will cut his throat and will bury him alive in my home yard, yes, he’s been messing with me for too long now”, now instead of just observing and letting the negative thought finish its course, you go: “The next time that guy says something like that to me, I will cut his throat and …”. and stop that thought mid way, you are putting that thought in prison in your mind. Now you are obliged to watch out at all times that it doesn't escape your mind prison. But we already know that you will lose the game, because you will finally lose focus, go to sleep and that thought will get free again and sabotage your beautiful inner garden.

The purity of the mind is at the base of the initiation path to enlightenment. But what is purity when we don't know how to protect it? how to keep it. What does it mean to always get back to the same kind of impure thoughts again and again? Techniques of how to purify one's mind is not what is missing. Actually there are plenty of purification methods out there on the internet and books. But to learn how to keep that purity is everything. Because to become rich, one needs to protect his investments, his money. And spirituality, we also do the same. We need to protect our purity, we need to know how to keep the purity we gain. And as far as the purity of the mind is concerned, we keep this purity with a constant auto observation. Nothing should enter our mind which we are not aware of. This is spiritual vigilance or auto observation which the most important thing to do in order to get richer spiritually. Otherwise we lose it all in a short time.

The auto observation can be developed and become an habit. Meaning that habit can be registered in our subconsciousness so we don't have to remember to glance at our mind every now and then. Once the auto observation has become second nature, we don't need to remind ourselves, we do this constantly without efforts or mind fatigue.

To develop the auto observation habit, I personally used to set my watch alarm to remind me to check my mind almost every 1 hour during my daily activities, at work, in the bus, at school, everywhere. When I started remembering by myself before the alarm rang, I stopped using the alarm and made an effort to remember doing this every 30 mins. Then the habit kicked in.

From experience, I know that once you get to get into the habit of checking the thoughts in your mind about every 30mins, you will quickly and soon become a constant mind watcher.

That reminder job helps better when you can also spare about 5 to 10mins time at home of auto observation every day or every day 2 days. ( but everyday at the beginning is recommended). Seat down, breath calmly. Take a pen (or pencil) and a blank peace of paper. Close your eyes and pay attention to your mind. DO NOT stop the thoughts, just watch them come and go. Draw a small line on the paper every time you witness a thought. But reminder when you spot a thought don't try to block it, either it is a good or bad thought, just watch it finish its course. Do this for 5 mins with your eyes closed. Then do the same with your eyes open.

Keep the count of thoughts you get per session . You will notice that the more you do it, after few weeks, you will start to notice that your counts will drop. If you used to count for example 10 thoughts in 5mins, after few weeks, you will notice a decrease, maybe you will only get 3 or 1 thought after few weeks.

That is an easy and safe practice on how we let impurities of the mind stuck in our aura go.

Love and light

[Shweta]

Thanks Kyra for a beautiful post. I did vipassana course and they also believe in doing the same.
While in dream state when you realize the thought does not belong to you, by that time you are already involved being that thought. That produces guilt which results in blocking. How can one observe when one is already midway in negitive thought. Shall we just observe ourself dreaming the dream until the end. Don't we become part of the thought by then.
Thanks for raising this topic.
Shweta

[krya]

Shweta wrote:

Thanks Kyra for a beautiful post. I did vipassana course and they also believe in doing the same.
While in dream state when you realize the thought does not belong to you, by that time you are already involved being that thought. That produces guilt which results in blocking. How can one observe when one is already midway in negitive thought. Shall we just observe ourself dreaming the dream until the end. Don't we become part of the thought by then.
Thanks for raising this topic.
Shweta

Thanks to you too Shweta taking interest to his post. Indeed most meditation practices aim to bring the person to the present moment, rather than letting him/her wander in the past and future thoughts. In the past and future thoughts are found impurities which we could avoid if we only we could practice some vipassana, some zen or mindfulness... In the past is found the worries, and in the future thoughts are found the anxiety. Worries and anxieties are common impurities which bury our tree self.

You said : "While in dream state when you realize the thought does not belong to you, by that time you are already involved being that thought".

What we truly are cannot be observed. Just like you've never been able to observe your face without a mirror, the consciousness (the true you) cannot look at itself. And so, if you can observe something, that thing is not you. If you can observe your thought you are not the thought in question.

To observe a thought frees you from identifying with that thought. When you think without being aware you are thinking, you identify yourself with the thought. But if when you are aware of your current thought, you separate yourself with that thought; The thought and you (the witness, the watcher, the observer) become two different things. That way, the fate of the thought in progress is not yours. In order words, whatever the thought is doesn't involve you anymore.

You are only involved with the thought when you are not aware that you are thinking of it. But as soon as you catch yourself thinking, the separation happens; you are no longer involved. And the help with that separation, try to also observe the emotions or feelings which that thought might have already caused in you before you the separation. If there is any feeling of guilt, just observe that guilt feeling, and it will go.

In order to success in vipassana, zen or any type of meditation in which we seek our true nature within. It is important to stick in mind that we are not the bad thoughts, nor the bad feelings. So during meditation whatever you observe within as bad thought or bad feelings is not our true self. When you catch those thoughts, and emotions, don't identify yourself with them, just say to yourself silently that those are not my things, and you continue watching all those bad thoughts and emotions rising and falling.

What we commonly judge as bad thoughts and feelings comes from our subconsciousness which is part of our lower nature. The subconsciousness is what is responsible of all the automatic thoughts and emotions which rises to your consciousness. The subconsciousness is the reason why our mind shifts from one thought to another every few seconds endlessly. It is kind of like a mind of its own, it is the part of our consciousness which we have no control over. It ensure that all our bodies keep working even if when the consciousness ( our true self) is not present, and so for example in our physical body it will make our heart and lungs pomp blood and air automatically, in our astral body it will make us desire things which gives us pleasures, in our mental body it will bring up continuously thoughts so we stay involved with the material life.

But someone who has taken the path of evolution speaks to that subconsciousness. He/she says "Hey subconsciousness, consciousness of our lower nature, I appreciate all the automatic work you've been doing while I the true consciousness were not awake, you kept me thinking and feeling of all sorts of nonsense. Now I'm awake, I will decide what and when to think and to feel, you will let me teach you".

From then we take control of our mental and astral body. With the auto observation, we protect our mental and astral body from impurities. Observe until the impurity fades and vanishes off your mind. Remember you are only truly affected by the impure thought when you encourage that thought, when you elaborate about it in your mind. Otherwise if when you notice a thought in your mind and simply observe it, if you become a simply witness towards that thought, without engaging, you will not be effected by the impurity.

Think of God like a consciousness which is also aware of all vibrations going on in the entire universe. God knows how to observe impurities without engaging to it, that's why it (God) is never effected by impurities.

Who knows how to observe a thought without elaborating that thought, doesn't become part of that thought.
The following exercise is also meant to avoid encouraging thoughts which rise in our mind.
http://www.myspiritualgroup.com/Thread-T...-Technique

Love and light

[Shweta]

Thanks Krya, very helpful technique.

[Amir]

There is not much literature on Friendship Day history as we celebrate today. However, there are numerous folktales and several instance in mythological legends that shows that friends and friendship have been valued since the beginning of civilized world. As an intrinsically social creature, men love to make friends to further this process of socialization.Considering the valuable role friends play in our life it was deemed to fit to have a day dedicated to friends and friendship. The United States Congress, in 1935, proclaimed first Sunday of August as the National Friendship Day. Since then, celebration of National Friendship Day became an annual event. The noble idea of honoring the beautiful relationship of friendship caught on with the people and soon Friendship Day became a hugely popular festival. -- Admin Edited url to hide it -- happy friendship day

[krya]

Hi Amir,
Sorry but I just don't understand.
I'm trying to find a relation between the auto -observation and what you've said about friendship day.

[Admin]

That was way Off topic to me, Amir.
I'm watching you.