How To Empty The Mind (Part One)

HOW TO BE EMPTY (Part One) 

 The mind cannot empty the mind. But initially, the mind can snare and train the mind. Beginning with a loving choice and a deep commitment. Start with the breath. The breath can take us beyond time and space. The mind can only take us "somewhere", some where in the past or future, and not nowhere, now and here .

 There is no point wrestling and controlling the mind. Who wrestles? The one wrestling already enters the state of wrestling. The game only continues. 

Begin with a gentle happy loving but determined choice to breathe, witness and be aware. Yet, the mind is a great tool. It is not the enemy. It can be a great ally. 

The mind has a role to play when we are functioning in human form. Brush teeth, wipe our bum, chew food, shower, read the traffic lights when crossing the street, cook etc. The mind is there for us to keep our bodies and function in the world so we can serve God through all His/Her embodiments or creation. 

Why did we take a human body if all we want is send loving energy to the cosmos and bless the manifested worlds? We can do that without a body. But can we plant trees and feed the hungry without a human body? 

Unless we are Masters we can, from the other realms simultaneously through "empty minds". They understand experientially that we are but extensions of Themselves. Many Masters are doing that already and have multiple bodies serving in different cosmos simultaneously. In the Christian understanding, it is called "Filled by the power of the Holy Spirit".

 In Zen Buddhism, it's "Empty Your Cup". How can we be filled when we are full of ourselves? We strut like zombies in the street worrying about the future and in anguish about the past. One is over and the other is simply, imagination. Emptiness requires Faith and Faith requires Surrender. Surrender requires Grace. 

Receiving Grace requires Prem to experience Prema (Intense Love for God within our hearts). Grace like the Sun, falls on all of us all the time. But not everyone is receptive, purified and sensitive enough to perceive and receive it and use it well. On the highest level of understanding, we are already what we have been longing to Experience. Pure Love. And Nothing is required really. But that's for another day to post. 

 Prem or intense all consuming Divine Love requires the annihilation of Everything we think we own and we are. Funny, it begins with the breath and the body. For something this simple and easy, it requires a whole lot of heart. We cannot discuss this forever. Nor read about it forever. If God wishes not to reveal Itself to us, we can't even understand what we read. Even this requires Grace. 

God is right there in the caterpillar crawling on a leaf, on a pebble basking in the sun, in every cell of our body, but do we see it? Do we feel it? The mind may know but without experience there is no true understanding and living in this Consciousness. 

 Let's just cut to the chase and be a bit practical and go for "concrete experience" of this Nothingness that even the mind can never fathom nor put into words. BE COMMITTED TO THE EXPERIENCE 

 Relax into the experience. Ease into it. Consistency is key. Schedule it in to start with until it becomes second nature. Same time, same place and eventually, everywhere in between. Do it with Love. This is not a battle. This is making Love with your sweet orgasmic breath. There is deliciousness in this experience eventually. The beginnings may be a bit of a struggle for some, unless it is not. 

 A) Be with the breath. Start small. Sit in your reserved meditation space or walk in your assigned meditation area. You a dancer or a painter or a musician? Whatever your medium is, no problem. You are still breathing.

 Feel and listen to the in-breath and the out-breath. Time yourself to start with, so you extend at least beyond 15 mins. to about half an hour in the mornings and evenings. Same time, same place and then gradually progress to all-day long. When a thought enters, just watch and try again. For most, 5 mins of this is already close to impossible. Never give up. Gently and tenderly try again. 

 The breath is more than just air. It is more than just prana or energy to keep the body alive. It holds in it the key to mystical worlds within and without the body. But you are not going anywhere mystical just yet, simply be in your body, breathing here and now. Just the breath, nowhere else. May it be shallow or erratic. Be with it like a Lover who cannot breathe without the Beloved. Eventually, as the Consciousness expands with Awareness, we tangibly feel all as our One Body. 

Do not desire nor aspire for that. It is already yours. You are simply being quiet enough to access what is already in your subtle experience constantly. 

 The breath is the key to access our subtle bodies. The physical body is the vortex and the portal. So close, so accesible. Don't be too proud and say it is so basic. Oh I'm already an advanced kriya yogi, I don't need that. Just watch how though very simple, it may not be so easy to sustain it for as short as 15 mins. before another thought enters yet again. 

 Witness the thoughts come and go with detachment. Return to the breath. A single thought enters? Smile. Just watch. Start all over again. 

 We begin. Use the senses. Feel. How simple. You can do it. Just do it.