What if we start becoming a little loosened up with what we think is right and wrong? Which things are right to do? Which things are right to eat, and which things are not right to do, eat or wear? These are just ideas that have been lodged in your head. You have a certain way of living your life which has been defined by your upbringing, by your culture, by so many factors. It’s unbelievable how many things are responsible for you growing up.
As we keep growing up we start forming habits. We start forming certain ideas that don’t change, that never ever change. They are just stuck. I’m not saying all of these ideas are good or all of these ideas are bad. The very process of accumulating ideas is the problem. If you start accumulating things into the mind and then think that that is right, a very weird thing starts happening. You come across an idea that is against what you have already accumulated. You will completely ignore it. It won’t even touch you. When you hear something that matches what you have accumulated, you will pull that in, and the mind will keep growing in a certain way. You’ll get more and more fixated on thinking that what you think about everything is right, because that’s how it seems to you. You have gotten all the proof for it. You have attracted all the information, and you can clearly and logically see that whatever you think is right is actually right.
You are not able to see another perspective because your perspective is so strong. Your identification with that accumulation of experience is so strong that you don’t want to let it go. You feel that if any new idea comes in, it can crash all that you have accumulated over 10 years, 20 years, all that hard work you have done to collect all of this experience and data and information. It is just rendered useless, and that is a big blow. It feels really scary because you have defined and designed your entire life around your mind. This accumulation of information is what becomes the mind, and if something shifts, your entire life will shift.
You are really scared of change. You have gotten so comfortable with the old that you don’t mind that it is giving you misery. You are, in fact, okay with the misery because you are scared of the unknown. You don’t know what is going to happen when you let go of the accumulations of your mind. You are the one that is holding on to it. It’s not the other way around. It is available to you. If you want to use it, you can. If you don’t want to use it, it can just be pushed aside, because it is an instrument, a device that is provided to you. It is a very powerful device. It’s a very complex mechanism, but it’s still a mechanism.
Collecting experiences and using them whenever required is a practical use of the mind. If a friend is asking you for money and you remember that the last two times he asked, it was difficult to get the money back, you can use that experience and decide in the moment whether you want to say yes or no. It’s that simple.
But let’s say you are driving to work and you’re looking outside. You suddenly see a banner for a bank. From that bank you jump to your bank, and from your bank you jump to sending money to your friend in the past. You remember all that struggle to get the money back, how difficult it was, how it strained your relationship. “If he asks for money, I’m never going to give it again. I’m not going to make the same mistake.” And all of this while you are driving your car. It’s not required. You understand? This is the mind using you. The mind is meant to keep you unconscious. Its utility is that it runs things. If you are not conscious, it will start taking up your conscious awareness as well. So there is a difference.
When I say let go of the mind, I do not mean erase your past or erase your experiences. I am just telling you to shift your relationship with that accumulation. Let it be something that you go to and use. That’s it. It is no longer real. It is not happening right now. Just a basic understanding of that, and that’s okay.
Now any time a memory comes up and you start thinking unconsciously, all you have to do is become aware. “Hey, I’m daydreaming. Wow, that was a crazy thing that just happened. I just got this thought.” Just observe it. It’s marvellous if you understand that there is a mechanism behind why the mind keeps bringing those thoughts back up, and that it is actually trying to help us. That is a completely different topic altogether, because if you understand how wonderfully designed our entire system is, it will blow your mind. The mind is bringing up those memories to help you release them. That’s why it’s doing it. It cannot harm you. The system is designed in such a way that we are always getting the experience we need for our consciousness to evolve. Any experience we are getting is what we are meant to get.
That is the difference between using your mind and the mind using you.
Now what happens when you start becoming a little loose with your beliefs? When you think something is absolutely right, just step back and allow yourself to see something you might have been missing. There is always something new to see anywhere you look. Every direction you look, you can keep looking and you’ll keep finding something new. That is the beauty of reality.
Say you have a very strong belief like “I cannot do scuba diving because I’m scared.” If that idea takes a stronghold on you, every time someone talks about scuba diving you will feel fear. Hold this belief a little lighter. “Maybe I’m scared.” If you start inquiring into this disturbance, you will reach the unconscious pattern that is lodged there, that has been frozen in the mind.
Once you become conscious of it, you start getting free of the energy it took to hold that belief tightly. Energy is being used constantly. When you release it, you are free of the external disturbance, and all the energy that was being used in thinking and processing that unconscious belief is released. It’s available to you in the form of bliss, peace, happiness. It’s just freed up energy. It’s your energy, obviously. It’s always been there, but it was being used up by something useless. Now it’s free. It’s available. That’s it.
Now that energy starts dancing within you. As you do more and more of this, as you go deeper within yourself, you find more unconscious thoughts, and you loosen them up and let them go. See, you’re not letting go of beliefs. You are letting go of the idea that something is right or wrong. You are just free. You are deciding in the moment. You have all the experiences you’ve ever had, and they’re all available to you in the mind. The universal intelligence will just flow through it. If an experience is required for you to remember, it will just come to you. You can just enjoy it. You can just view it. If you are meant to feel angry in this moment, anger will come to you. You’ll be given an opportunity. Even that is something you can witness and learn from and release. The anger is coming up because it needs to be released.
If all the so called disturbances are allowed to come up, allowed to be, and allowed to be released, all the energy that was being held keeps releasing. That’s how important it is to loosen our beliefs, to not be so strong about them. Be doubtful. See what you can doubt. Doubt as much as you can. That’s how you get new perspectives.