How Can Mind Help To Find The Truth?

[Naviy]

I've just finished doing self inquiry, and a thought has formed (sorry, this might be just some random raw thoughts).

How can mind help to find the Truth (Reality, True Self, etc.)? Everything that mind does, is not the Truth, and everything, that mind can possibly do, is not the Truth.

What executes the act of searching? It seems, that the mind does.

What can be concentrated or not concentrated? The mind.

What is aware or unconscious? The mind.

What sees? I believe, that "seeing" is the activity of mind. Any experience is mind. 

What "does"? The mind.

What is Will? Activity of mind.

Self inquiry is the act of mind. When the mind does self inquiry, it is running circles, because both the act of self inquiry and the results of self inquiry are in the mind. How can mind transcend itself?

What is not mind?

It seems, that everything is the mind. What is mind then? Well, first of all, it is a thought, of course. But, also, what is mind right now, in "reality"?

It seems, that everything = mind. But it is kind of obvious that the Truth is not anything and not everything and not mind. 

++

What is the difference between very present and "lost in thoughts" state? These are both just experiences in the mind. We believe that "I am conscious" in the first state and "unconscious" in the second state. But both states are just experiences. It does not matter, if you are concentrated or not concentrated, if you are present or lost. The mind is present or lost (actually, it is not, because both "present" and "lost" are just equal experiences). 

 

Edited March 15, 2016 by Naviy

[cetus]

@Naviy I don't do the deep self inquiry thing. To me it seems like giving the ego mind all the attention it wants. Unless there is a lot of baggage to toss out. If that's the case, than yes.  But that's too much mind happening for true growth. Where is the pure being in all this? The silent observer that exists beyond the playground of the mind. Transcending the mind should become effortless once the pure state of being is experienced. Have you had a transcendent experience yet? What exists beyond your mind?

[Naviy]

I never could understand how "silent observer" can exist. If anything exists, then it is not the observer. Such thing as observer cannot exist by definition. And it is not only an intellectual conclusion. This is what I see with my observations.

How can "anything" be "experienced"? You do not experience a thing. Experience is the thing. There are no "things" that are being "experienced". There is only experience. 

Also, how can "you" experience the "experience"? Why is it necessary for some "you" to exist, so "experience" could exist too? Can experience exist without you experiencing it?     

[theinevitableandi]

do this right now!!

Observe your breath! ...

ok is that a thought observing your breath? or is that you observing the breath? 

notice how you don't need mind to observe and realize there is this thing called breathing...

or....

Notice how you breath without thinking or beat your heart without using mind.... 

when you say... " Mind is everything " ... that is just more mind saying that the mind is everything... 

have you  asked yourself " What is a thought ?" do you know what a thought is?

[Anton Rogachevski]

In one of the last videos leo drew a beautiful metaphor of thoughts questioning thoughts collapse and tear a hole in consciousness through which light can shine through. So yes indeed the mind is used to collapse itself : )

 

2 hours ago, Naviy said:

I believe, that "seeing" is the activity of mind. Any experience is mind.

You can't know that intellectually, since "mind" is only logical in terms of "not-mind". And if all were mind there wouldn't be such a definition.

 

 

2 hours ago, Naviy said:

It seems, that everything = mind. But it is kind of obvious that the Truth is not anything and not everything and not mind.

Come to think about it, everything you ever experience or know is an interpretation of the mind. So it's true from a metaphysical point of view.

I think that the experience of that is exactly what that famous saying means. "All is one," which of course is illogical and thus ridiculed.

[cetus]

 

1 hour ago, Naviy said:

I never could understand how "silent observer" can exist. If anything exists, then it is not the observer. Such thing as observer cannot exist by definition. And it is not only an intellectual conclusion. This is what I see with my observations.

How can "anything" be "experienced"? You do not experience a thing. Experience is the thing. There are no "things" that are being "experienced". There is only experience. 

Also, how can "you" experience the "experience"? Why is it necessary for some "you" to exist, so "experience" could exist too? Can experience exist without you experiencing it?     

The silent observer is absolute nothingness. It contains nothing, and yet it contains everything. Something that that will always allude the mind. It permeates this existence at all times and everything that happens here, echoes' into nothingness for infinity.. Conscionsceness is that empty space within this experience. It flourishes when there is no mind.

[Ayla]

Papaji has a beautiful metaphor: 

You have a thorn in your foot (mind). Use another thorn (inquiry) to remove the first thorn - then throw them both away

 

[cetus]

@Ayla Is the thorn needed to remove the thorn, not the remainder of the ox?

[Ayla]

@cetus56

Use whatever you like, but in the end... the thorn must get out, one way or another.  

 

[cetus]

Thorns exist only in the mind. Like the hairs of an ox's tail. Where is the remainder of the ox?

[Ayla]

@cetus56

This is what I usually call "looping"  

 

[cetus]

Nothingness loops back into existence to become one thing happening and completes the circle? If that's what you mean by looping, I totally agree.

[Leo Gura]

8 hours ago, Naviy said:

What is aware or unconscious? The mind.

This is false. Mind is not responsible for awareness.

The mind is not what reaches enlightenment. Enlightenment is what results when mind is stopped.

Speaking of Patanjali, the second yoga sutra states: "The sole aim of Yoga is the cessation of mind."

That's not an accident. That's the only way.

Mind has to stop. And this is not in the mind's power to do. The mind cannot stop itself. Which is why there is no procedure for becoming enlightened. Enlightenment is a spontaneous occurrence that happens outside of mind. Which is what makes it so challenging, because the mind wants to stop the mind, but that desire only activates the mind more.

[theinevitableandi]

lol the mind wants to get rid of the mind.. that sounds absolutely nuts! 

its so funny how that the mind thinks it's really important to think. If you think a lot you are super dooooper intelligent says the mind... 

 

 

[Ayla]

For a while, you need the mind to undo its own entanglements. Mind will go nuts to try and find solutions and ways and read books and look for metaphors to mesmerize the being. But at one point, it will be faced with a block. Nowhere else to go. No solution to be found. 

Let me use an example. Let's say you are a woman giving birth. There are maaany moments when your mind is saying: this baby cannot come out. Can't come out, OMG it won't come out! .... And at one point, mind really clicks: this baby ISN'T coming out! All the conviction and the horror and the helplessness of mind is there, shocked, blocked! That's when Grace brings it out. Something switches. Some help comes somehow. And baby comes out