Who Do You Think You ARE?

You are not your brain, and you are not your nervous system.

If that sentence makes you uncomfortable, then good.

The brain is physical and it lives and dies inside of time.

But the mind? The mind moves through past, present, and future without asking permission.

So which one of them is really you? You’ve been taught to identify with the physical body, with the emotions and fluctuations of the nervous system and a long list of stories associated with your name. Things like your, job, reputation, accomplishments, failures, and your past to list a few.

Do you think all of these stories and accolades add up to who you are? A collection of labels, and you call it a self. But if you can watch your thoughts, how can you be them? If you can observe your emotions, how can they define you? There is something in you that does not move. It does not react. It simply watches. That is the real you. The real you is not a personality, or a story or an identity that you have to create, defend and perform every day.

And this is where it gets uncomfortable because if you are the observer then everything you think you are being is actually something you’re observing. Which means it is not you. Most people will never go here because the moment you see this clearly your entire life starts to unravel. The way you eat changes. The way you relate to the world changes. The way you spend your precious time changes. You stop tolerating things you used to normalize. You stop chasing things that used to define you. You begin to realize that you were never that person to begin with.

There is no one coming to save you. There is no external force that’s going to reach into your life and fix it. Because the awareness you are searching for is the same awareness reading these words right now. God is not separate from you. If God is omnipresent doesn't that mean the God presence is inside of you? Most people avoid this surrender, not because it’s complicated but because it requires death. Not physical death, but identity death.

The death of “I am this person.”“I need this to be way.”“This is who they expect me to be.” "I do what I have to do." "This is they way I was raised."

Because if you’re honest… you’ve been repeating the same patterns for years.

Same thoughts with the same triggers. The same seemingly uncontrollable loops of emotion. Year after year, different situations but the same reactions and behavior. And you call this your life.

If you cannot direct your own thoughts, then you are not truly living. You are being lived because your impulses are ruling you. The fact that the one of the only things human beings can control is their thoughts is one of the simplest and most profound indications of how laden with power your thoughts are. Many walk through life on auto pilot. Allowing your fears to decide and your conditioning to choose on your behalf, and you follow like a faithful slave.

Freedom is not doing whatever you want. True freedom is being able to sit within your own mind and not be controlled by it. Master the ability to sit amongst your thoughts without having your world turned upside down or needing to run away.

To witness a thought arise and not attach. To feel an emotion emerge and not become it. To remain as the observer no matter what is happening. That is detachment. That is the real death of the ego. That is true power. Most people don’t want this because it costs everything. It costs your identity and your attachments to peer standards. Your illusions are vaporized and you go through cognitive dissonance as your old world belief systems break down. It costs the version of you that you’ve spent your entire life creating and then protecting. This is what they mean when they say "die into it", because the old identified with self ceases to exist.

So the question is not:

“Is this true?”

The question is:

Are you willing to see it?

Your Second Task in Mental Conditioning

Now that you’ve begun to observe the mind…we start learning how to direct it.

Return to the same practice of sitting in stillness.

Same seat. Same posture. Same discipline.

But now, instead of letting the mind roam freely… you give it a point of focus.

This can be:

• a candle flame

• a black dot on the wall

• your breath

• or a single point behind your closed eyes

Your only task:

Hold your attention there.

And when your mind wanders—and it will—

you bring it back. Again. And again. And again. You must not judge yourself and instead allow the frustration pass by. Simply directing awareness to repeatedly return to the chosen point of focus.

This is the beginning of mental control. Not forcing the mind…but learning that you are the one who directs it.

The Goal?

The ability to concentrate on one point for 15-30 min without moving or speaking with no back ground noise or people around.

Your Practice

Once a day, for 15 - 30 minutes

• Sit in stillness (as before)

• Choose one point of focus

• Each time the mind drifts → gently return

If 15 minutes becomes easy… extend to 20 or 30.

At the end of each session, write in your journal all that you became aware of:

• How often did your mind wander?

• What pulled your attention away?

• How did it feel to bring it back?

• Did your body try to act on it's ow?

• Did the mind try to push you around?

Learning these things about yourself is where everything begins to change.

with Love,

Aja