A friend recently sent me a Psychology Today article titled The Art of Now: 6 Steps to Living in the Moment. It brilliantly defines the meaning and benefits of mindfulness or living in the present moment and thoughtfully presents six steps to defying our habit of being so much in our heads, or so wrapped up in our thoughts, that we completely miss out on life!
It inspired me to challenge my Intro Series students to take time to simply notice and observe their thoughts. When I myself embraced the task after reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, it absolutely fascinated me how incessant my mind was in terms of thinking. If you've ever tried to meditate you have probably realized that as much as you want to concentrate only on your breath somehow thoughts and ruminations keeping sneaking in! It's quite amazing actually that it is so dfiicult for our minds to just be "still." Unless we actively meditate, our minds NEVER stop working. This reminds me of the famous Descartes philosophy of "I think, therefore I am." Hmmm. It's as if we identify so much with our minds that as Tolle said, we believe we are our minds. But, when the chatter in our heads stops, what happens, really? Do we disappear? Are we no longer a part of something, humanity, the world?
As we start observing our thoughts - just observing without making any judgement at all - we realize that at times they are in no way productive. I noticed that unless I was focused on a task or proactively thinking or devising a solution to a problem or just being present, my mind sort of ran away with me and there were moments when my thoughts would drift and I'd become anxious, more worried, or more fearful of something, all of which was simply illusory. I was completely missing living in the present, enjoying looking at my surroundings, interacting with the people around me. The mind can so easily create fears, worries and judgements that unless we're mindful we believe in these illusions which frankly aren't reality. Mark Twain once brilliantly claimed, "I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happend." How true is that for you?
Also, when we identify so much with our minds and our thoughts we feel and become seperate from others. Tolle illustrates this point, saying, "The compulvie thinker, which is almost everyone, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in an insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflicts, a world that reflects the ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind.... Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgements, and definition that blocks all true relationship... It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you and a totaly separate "other." You then forget the essential fact that, underneath the level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that is."
In yoga we learn that we are all connected and we are one. When we finally fathom this concept, we begin to develop more compassion for ourselves and others. We realize we are not alone. We become less judgemental and critical and instead more open and loving. Of course our minds serve us in so many productive and wonderful ways; we we use our minds and thoughts to support our personal growth, to excel in school, to build our careers, to create, to serve our fellow human beings, to make beautiful things, to interact with each other and build relationships. It's just when we lose control of our thoughts and begin do believe in illusions that the compulsive over-thinking becomes injurious to our well-being and our connection to the rest of humanity preventing us from simply being present.
Just ponder this cartoon from New Yorker magazine: "Two monks are sitting side by side, meditating, The younger one is giving the older one a quizzical look, to which the older one responds, 'Nothing happens next. This is it.'" It's so simple.
Yoga and meditation help us make focusing our attention on the present a habit since during these practices we get into our bodies and internalize our awareness. In this way, we give our minds a rest and begin paying attention to our bodies and listening to our intuition. We then realize there's nowhere else we'd rather be than here and now.
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