What is an effective process for dealing with the mechanics of your mind?

At any time you can look at a thought form and get involved in the content of the thought. In therapy you start to get psycho-dynamic. You can say, “Ok, now I’m gonna look at the mechanics of my mind,” in which case every thought is just another thought. It’s not some special thought or the deepest thought. So I would take the kind of internalized feeling and thought, and I would bring my awareness back to my breath, and then the thought would come again, and I would go back to my breath, and then the thought would come again, and again I would come back to my breath, until eventually I started to appreciate it as just another thought, because at this point I am treating it like that, rather than like it is ‘real’ or ‘solid.’

It’s only a set of thoughts that you have internalized, which means you made those thoughts ‘real’ at some point, so they become very powerful, a very invested set of thoughts. Is that true? Yeah, so the questions is, “Do you treat the thoughts as special?” …Which invests them with reality and keeps them real even more.

You can say, “Oh, it’s just another thought,” and then back to the breath, back to the drawing board, again and again, until your awareness is just, “Ahhh… there that is again.”

The minute you aren’t identifying with the thought, the whole psychic energy that is invested in that thought starts to loosen its hold, and the whole thought dynamic starts to change its position in relation to the scene. Do you hear what I’m saying?

Your work is only on yourself, not on others. Their karma is their karma. You’re picking it up as you’re picking it up, and what it’s doing is resonating with a place in you that is caught around that issue. Okay?

And now what I’m saying is that’s just another set of thought forms, basically. It’s a set of thought forms that are defining a conceptual structure you have of yourself and reality, and it’s rooted also in your looking to other people to legitimize yourself. That’s the way we are socialized. We were socialized, and after a while, you extricate yourself, and your awareness just is, neither good or bad. I’m not going to prove I’m not bad, I’m just… I am, and what you think of me is your problem, not mine now. Do you see that process?

-Ram Dass

Leave a Comment

RamDass-Store-Shop-700x286

Ram Dass Online Shop

Buy books, media, digital downloads, apparel, devotional, art & other great items!

Join Our Newsletter

Sign up for the Love Serve Remember newsletter to receive teachings, exclusive offers & more.

Something went wrong. Please check your entries and try again.

Donate to LSRF

Help ensure that the teachings of Ram Dass will be available to generations to come.

A Network of Mindfulness & Spirituality Podcasts
❤️   DONATE
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap