The greatest blessing in this life is also the greatest curse – our Mind.
Without it, we would know nothing, for everything we do know exists only in our Mind. Our awareness of our Mind however would appear to be limited by our material existence, in fact many of us are not absolutely certain where our Mind resides. One popular school of thought is that it has something to do with our brain, yet it seems too big to be limited to that space. If we consider that our mind is not, in any way, a material entity but actually a spiritual one, then residency is not an issue, although its origin and power source might be.
Our Mind, however, needs the security of a foundation, a place to rest its weary bones on occasion. There’s comfort in adopting the idea that the Mind emerges in the brain, the seat of thought, and that it draws its power from our biochemical processes. This seems logical.
However, such a belief is self-destructive. Again, logically, if this is reality, then nothing ever existed prior to our consciousness, and everything must cease to exist when we expire. Yet the belief is pervasive – as well as limiting. The brain is the single greatest user of our limited energy supply and the power needed for our Mind to operate, if it is biochemical, is finite and so it must be conserved. To achieve effective conservation, we need to be efficient in all things, and this is accomplished mainly through acquiring habits in our responses to this world’s challenges.
Habits, especially the deep-seated, foundational ones, are comfortable. They are also invisible much of the time and because they impact so heavily upon our continuing well-being, they resist change – change that we need to grow and prosper in a changing world. If we do not change with events and shifting circumstances we will perish. Recognizing this, we struggle.
It is a struggle we need to face alone. Externally applied incentives and significant relationships have proven to be very limited in realizing substantial change. Our perspectives, what we choose to focus on and how we frame the world around us, have far greater leverage. Focus and expectations are prime movers, and they are both our responsibility and an ‘inside job’.
Focus and expectations define us, they inform both us and everyone else, who we are as a human becoming, and they begin with us. The future is ours to design and create but the only time we can do anything about anything is now. Of course we will need a destination-in-mind (our intention) but we also need the will to move (our motivation).
The alternative is lethargy and apathy, slow death.
Is there a journey you need to take?
