My dear Friends,
As I’m reading this great message again, a year and a half after we received it, I realize (once again… and again!) the great depth and accuracy of this Teaching. The teaching, indeed, is always the same, though it can take many shapes and forms… whatever our Holy Spirit will “judge” necessary in the moment. Now that we’ve been through, lately, the messages from the ‘Inner Ramana’, we realize that all that truly matters is that we loose interest in what the mind has to say. And this is of course, the same as stepping back, more and more, from the thoughts and opinions ans ideas, and beliefs that people our thinking mind. Once we can see the thoughts without reacting to them, we can easily relax and stop believing them, and begin to place our focus solely on our Source within, which is Pure Awareness by the way.
This Bus Analogy is such a wonderful tool… a gift of awakening that the sane part of our one mind gives us.
I wish you a wonderful infusion of this gem, as well as a pleasurable detachment from traffic.
Love,
Laurent
Holy Spirit: Resting the mind is easier than you think, and you’ve given yourselves the perfect image for this practice. Imagine yourself on the bus. When you are not resting the mind, you are totally caught up in your thoughts as the driver of the bus. You react to each thought like the driver would react to the circumstances of traffic. You get angry at the guy who cuts you off. You stop and go with traffic signals. You are uneasy in fast, swerving traffic. You are afraid when you see a large dump truck coming right at you. Everything is a reaction and you seem to be victim to the traffic circumstances outside the bus.
Now, move back one seat. As you move back one seat, you become somewhat less interested in traffic circumstances. You may notice the red lights and green lights, but you do not feel a need to react to them. You simply notice they are there. But in the seat directly behind the driver, you may still react to the one who cuts off the bus or to the dump truck that is coming right at you.
Move back another seat. Notice that as you move back further, you are more detached from reaction. The one who cuts off the bus may be interesting to see now, but you may not have a reaction to the observing. The traffic signals are barely noticed, and the dump truck gets less of a reaction of fear.
To rest the mind is to move back from the thoughts. It is to watch them without believing them. It isn’t to stop them, just as riding in a bus does not stop traffic. Traffic continues, but the rider is less involved with it than the driver is. Become less involved with your thoughts by observing them without interacting (reacting or believing) with them.
Moving back in the bus is not something you can force yourself to do, so do not even try. If you are in the driver’s seat, that’s where you are. Do not judge yourself for being there. Just notice where you are and will for moving back in the bus. Each time you will for moving back in the bus, you increase your willingness more to be less involved with the traffic of your thoughts. It is through willing for that moving back is accomplished. Of course, willing for moving back is the same as willing for awareness, because the driver is never truly aware. He is too involved in reacting and attempting control to rest within awareness of what is happening in traffic. This is the same as saying he cannot see the forest for the trees. He misses the whole by being too caught up in artificial parts.
Question: My thinking mind is arguing with the analogy of the bus. It argues that as I move back in the bus, I am less aware. The driver is in the seat of most awareness.
Answer: The driver is in the seat of most involvement, but most involvement is not most awareness. The traffic outside the bus is illusion. When the driver is involved with the traffic, he does not know it isn’t there. As you move further back in the bus and become less involved, you clearly become more aware because now you are seeing that the false isn’t true.