You Are Not Your Mind
Just posted to Mudita Forum:
My thanks to Mark for his spirited kick-off essay introducing Chapter 1 in our discussion of The Power of Now.
In some ways, this chapter is a tour-de-force of challenging ideas. Here is my personalized summary of some of the key points from the chapter:
* Enlightenment is not a superhuman accomplishment, but rather a natural state of “felt connectedness with Being.”
* The experience of Being provides the basis of the spiritual life; however, Being is not something supernatural, but rather the supremely natural: existence itself, prior to being differentiated, by the mind, into existents.
* Being can be felt directly, as the experience of your own inner body. As a part of what exists, we are each part of Being, and thus the experience of Being is available to us at all times, if we only pay attention to it.
* However, we have a neurotic tendency instead to identify with our minds. This causes a constant preoccupation with past and future, as well as much unhappiness. As the mind strives to protect its fabricated sense-of-self — the ego — we are subjected to a low level of chronic anxiety and fear. Hence, the preoccupation with the dream-like past and future, rather than with the here-and-now.
* Descartes’s statement that “I think, therefore I am,” is thus an expression of the most basic error: to equate thinking with being, and identity with thinking.
* This tendency to identify with the mind is also the primary obstacle to experiencing Being, and thus enlightenment. Only by letting go of the ‘egoic mind’ can we find peace and connectedness with Being, with what is available to be experienced in this moment, with what actually is.
* The road to enlightenment lies in deliberately cultivating the capacity for present-moment awareness, and the direct experience of what is, in this moment, true and real.
* When we need to use our mind, our capacity for thought, it will still be there. But our mind will be clearer, more focused, more penetrating. We won’t be as clouded by resistance, tension, and emotion.
Above, I mention that these ideas are challenging. They can be particularly so for admirers of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, for several reasons:
…It challenges us to open to a new kind of spirituality, which can feel alien to self-identified atheists.
…It challenges us to recognize the destructive role of the ego, challenging the value of egoism per se. (Or does it?)
…It further challenges us to dis-identify with the mind — with our capacity for abstract thought — which seems like a yet more fundamental challenge to the very heart of Ayn Rand’s philosophy: the unalloyed reliance on reason.
Can these differences ever be reconciled? If so, how?
I certainly believe they can be reconciled, and to great benefit — but only after very careful consideration. I look forward to reading others’ thoughts.
On reading this I downloaded Power of Now from iTunes and gave the first chapter a listen. You are correct – on the surface there seems to be many affronts to Objectivism. But I tried to let go of attachments to words as Objectivists use them and try to understand them as Tolle uses them in order to at least understand his point of view.
For example, take the concept of “no-mind”. Certainly a knee jerk Objectivist response to such an idea welled up within me. But once Tolle identified his premise – that “no-mind” is simply the consciousness without thought, specifically – a consciousness unclouded by habitually undirected and utterly random thoughts – I understand this to be a totally valid premise within Objectivism. Not all thinking is directed and focused. In fact most of it is not. It’s noise. When Tolle has us observe these thoughts in an objective detached way – it’s pretty clear. And they do conceal something. I’m not buying into the idea that it’s the power of the universe within me or that it is “God” – but it is calming to remove the static of random undirected thoughts that fill the mind – even if for a minute.
I think Objectivists tend to associate ego with efficasy and mind with ego. What Tolles is saying is that we are actually allowing our identity – our concept of ~I am~ to be directed by these random unfocused static of thoughts. In doing so we become slave to this phenomenon. It’s an illusion. Tolle makes the distinction between directed and purposful reason and thought – and the random unfocused titdal wave of thought that normally fills our minds to which we attach our concept of self.
In this way I don’t see it as dis-identify with the mind per se. Just a particular function of the mind. The mind is always present – it is a faculty that cannot exist absent the body nor the body without the mind. So when we detach and “listen” to the mind’s random thought – it is still the functioning of the literal human mind that is listening – just on another level. But it is a level that is a real life function of a real living human mind.
So when Tolle says “no-mind” and “beyond the mind” he sounds like he’s speaking mystic mumbo jumbo. There is no “no-mind” or “beyond the mind” in the literal sence. We are as much our minds as we are our livers. He is simply giving a name – an identity- (mind) to the phenomenon of mental noise and our attachment of ~self~ to that noise. So it sounds very mystical – but it’s really pretty basic psychology.
In this way I think the ideas Tolle offers can be a great compliment – and in fact synthesis with Objectivism which needs a stronger themes in psycho-epistemological praxis.
I’m really enjoying these ideas – (my first formal exposure to them) and I look forward to continuing with the audio book. Thanks to Joshua for creating this forum and blending these idea sets!
HI,
Sit still for 1 minute and you will see that thoughts simply arise out of nothinness. YOu are simply a watcher…watching the thoughts come and go. The same thing applies for sensing sensations in your body. YOu cannot stop sensations because you are not the one doing them.
peace
Hi Joshua
This is a good site, enjoyable. I am interested in Tolle’s works.
I was wondering if the ‘essay’ mentioned above
quote “My thanks to Mark for his spirited kick-off essay introducing Chapter 1 in our discussion of The Power of Now.”
Also, is there a record of the discussion?
Many thanks
Nick
Nick,
Yes, here is the correct link to the essay. I’ve also updated the link above in my post.
Joshua