(Soft music) - What else is absolutely essential that you don't learn at school? Well, it's is also
connected with awareness, and that is awareness of your thoughts. If you do not learn that you
can be aware of your thoughts, then you are trapped in your
thoughts and by your thoughts. And that is the fate still
off many, many millions of humans on the planet. They are so identified
with their thoughts, that that's all they know of
the world and of who they are. So there is a dimension of consciousness in every human that is
beyond the thinking mind. And why don't they teach that at school? It's so basic and simple. You can think, a lot
of the time you think. Many humans think almost
without interruption. They have a voice in their
head that never stops talking, in other words, thinking. And yet there's the possibility of realizing another
dimension of consciousness that's one could say, it's
behind all your thoughts, or it's a canvas for your thoughts, or can say, it's the space
in which your thoughts arise and into which your thoughts subside, whatever you'd call it. It's the dimension of
awareness or presence. And we live in a
civilization that is being, one could almost say being
completely taken over by thought, by mental concepts. And there's been a loss of, a tragic loss of that deeper dimension that is in every human
being in that tends it, you do not need to achieve it. You only need to discover it. There's a big difference between
achieving and discovering. To achieve something you
need time, obviously, but to discover, some
discovery is of something that is already here (laughs). So, you discover that dimension
of consciousness in you, that is awareness in-between two thoughts. For example, at this moment,
when I stopped speaking and then I speak again. So there was a gap and that
gap was, you were just aware, and it is happening again. In that gap if you are
alert, you are not thinking. In these gaps you'd
notice you're conscious, but you're not, there's
no conceptualization. And again, now, and this is so natural. And so, vitally important
to have to be in touch with that dimension, to be
rooted in that dimension. It's amazing that it is
not common knowledge, that this is the most vital thing that there is in any human life. The great teachers pointed to it. It's the emptiness of the Buddha, the Kingdom of Heaven of Jesus
that is within you here now, different words, and it
can happen naturally. It's perhaps more likely to happen when you look at something
natural, again, a tree, the sky. In the first moment of looking at the sky, in the first moment of looking
at a landscape or the tree or the flower, you may find in
the first moment of looking, you're not conceptualizing it. There's two or three seconds when there's just sense perception and an awareness of the sense perception. Look at the sky, two, three seconds. Then usually the mind comes in
and says something about it. It conceptualize it. That's fine, but capture, if
you can catch and so to speak, always the first moment
when something arises in your sensory field, sensory perception, catch the first moment and you will notice for brief two or three seconds
there's no conceptualization. You're just, there's the perception. But what is behind the
perception, awareness, the light of consciousness, without which there
would be no perception. So you, whenever you look at
something new or you begin, or as a sound that suddenly arises, and you may not know what it is. So do you have to listen carefully. A sound is arising, the mind
may want to interpret it, but in order to, first you
need to be alert and listen. And there's a sound. And for the first two or three seconds, the mind is not saying anything about it because there's only the perception of it. Then comes the interpretation. Now, if you are completely trapped in the conceptualizing mind,
these moments are so short when you just perceiving. You're hardly aware of it and whatever, you're almost immediately labeling it or you're not even aware of, or just be a referee aware of it, because all your attention is absorbed by the voice in the head,
by the mind activity. So there's a consciousness,
you are this consciousness. The consciousness gives rise to thought in the same way that the
ocean gives rise to a wave. And that's fine. It's been, it's an incredible thing that conceptualization
happens in human beings. It was an evolutionary step forward, but there's great danger
associated with it. And the danger is that
you lose yourself in it. There's a power that
came with focus thinking, is a great power. Being able to memorize and anticipate, and all these things are amazing. We could make amazing things. And science developed just as an extension of the human mind, the focused application of the human mind, and that created new, incredible things. But then, the something
dangerous happened. We got increasingly, we
got taken over by that, which ultimately is only an instrument. And we got taken over by it completely. So that many humans are basically
in present in their minds, which is the conditioned mind, which is all the content
of your consciousness. Condition, of course, by the past. And most humans are still
completely in present in that. So you derive your identity
from the movement of thought. So you don't know who
you are beyond the move, whatever thought is telling
you about yourself (laughs). Whatever the story of you is
telling you about yourself that's where you derive
your sense of self from. And that's normal in this world, but it's extremely limiting. And then it happens that quite often, certain thoughts invade your
mind, can easily happen. So your mind becomes
colonized by certain thoughts that take over sometimes almost
the totality of your mind, obsessive thoughts. It can happen to individuals where you had one obsessive
thoughts suddenly takes over, and then you perceive the whole world through the veil of one obsessive thought, which has all the answers. But it can also happen to collectives. It can happen to a collective civilization that collectively, certain
thoughts arise in the collective, and they invade every individual's mind and take over the way
in which you perceive, they perceive the world. That can, that happens, for example, this totalitarian regimes
when wonderfully described in the writer who took it to an extreme, Orwell described in "1984", where you've got completely taken over. You have the Thought Police. You're only allowed to
think certain things that you collectively, the collective mind becomes completely possessed
by certain thoughts. Now, thoughts are like,
it's perhaps helpful to look at thought as
they are little beings, they are energy forms. Everything like you are, and
everything is an energy form. And thoughts that arise are energy forms. Imagine them as little
entities, you can't see them. They have a relationship
with your physical brain, but you can't see thoughts,
they're little entities that arise and there they come. And one entity can act like a virus, acts on a physical level,
which can invade the body and take over the body and
live there as a parasite, can even kill the body. You can also have a mental
virus that enters your mind and then begins to
proliferate and create salts that are in alignment with
those with one central thought, which may be a total delusion. But you have one central thought that attracts other related thoughts, and you have something that grows this. You have a viral infection
on a mental level. Now this can happen to
individuals when case and when it reaches a certain point, this infection of a mental
virus can be recognized as clearly disease, a
disease insanity when it's, but until it reaches this
point in an individual, we may not even recognize
it as a mental illness, mental, complete mental dysfunction. They need to reach a certain point and you can suddenly, when you
listen to this person saying, let's, for example, in
the case of paranoia, then everything's interpreted
as enemies are everywhere. They're following me,
they're listening to me, they're listening devices, and
they're going into my mind. And the entire world is
conspiring to destroy me and follow, all these, it
stops with one thought. And then if, so your mind
gets totally infected by a thought. This can happen to an individual. It can also happen to a collective when the minds of millions of people or whatever number it may be become taken over by certain thoughts, viewpoints, or opinions. And sometimes they can
be very much divorced from anything that's real and the reality. But once you've taken, been taken over, you don't even know it. You cannot, nobody can
question it because you have, you are not really there anymore. Only the conditioned mind is
there pretending to be you. And so you cannot question it. Nobody, but if you believe,
if somebody came to me with a delusion and said they
are, what's a common delusion, I am Napoleon. So their mind has been
taken over by a delusion. I wouldn't say it is not
wise to tell this person, this is a delusion, you are not Napoleon. Or it's better to adjust to be present and to listen to that person. Not to say yes or no, just listen. That's how you experience the world. And it may be possible to
connect with that person so that a little bit
of awareness comes in. Then that there's a possibility of healing when the little bit of awareness comes in. But if you deny a delusion, then there's immediately a disconnection. So I don't talk about
things that I perceive in this contemporary world,
as collective delusions. There's no point. The most important thing is
to bring about the discovery of the dimension of awareness in humans. And then that is how they become immune to the viral infection on a mental level. So the only way you can become immune to being infected by all
kinds of strange thoughts that come at you in these days, through the devices that you have. You need the mainstream
media, social media, and all these kinds of things,
or you're being flooded with thought forms continuously. If you're not careful, I highly suggest you reduce the amount
of time you spend there and look at a plant instead,
or the sky (laughs). So the immunity, the only
immunity you have is awareness, so that you are not
taken over by thoughts. And the, otherwise the ability to think, even although you are still thinking, but the ability to think
rationally and it diminishes, the more you get taken over by
dysfunctional mind patterns. You can no longer deal
with situations rationally. And so you're on a downward slope. So the important thing
then is the realization that apart from thinking, there's something more vital in you, and that is the dimension
of awareness or presence. From that dimension, you can
know what your mind is doing. And the likelihood that you get taken over by certain thoughts, decrease
the more aware you become. You still have thoughts, of course. You still have opinions
which are thoughts. You still have viewpoints,
political viewpoints, whatever view points, you
still have viewpoints, but theirs, but they do not give you your sense of identity anymore. They are viewpoints. And you may believe that this is a truth and the other viewpoint is not true. But your identity is not
no longer invested in it, your sense of self. Because your sense of self
has shifted to awareness. You are consciousness. And then you note the other human who holds a different view
bond is no longer your enemy because your identity is not
derived from your viewpoint, your opinion, your thoughts. If your thoughts give you your identity, then the others who hold opposite thoughts or very different thoughts
become your enemy. It's mad, but that's how it is. It's the basic human dysfunction, which operates on a personal level and on a collective level. So the most vital thing
that to learn, which again, should be the very foundation of all, everything that is done at school, is that there is this dimension
of consciousness in you that you can access and discover. You can access it by becoming a lot and observing your thoughts. When you're aware of frequent thoughts that frequently go through your mind, but most importantly,
becoming aware of yourself as conscious presence rather
than as a mind made entity. So, very often the
practice to be engaged in is to realize that a lot of thinking that happens in your mind
is not only unnecessary. Some of it is necessary and great. But a lot of it is not only unnecessary, but it's actually
destructive to your health, your wellbeing, your happiness. A lot of thought is
destructive of happiness, of wellbeing, your the
ability to feel alive, your ability to feel joy,
your ability to be creative. A lot of mind activity is destructive. So whenever you are engaged in worrying. Worrying is completely purposeless. Nobody has ever found
a solution to a problem by worrying about it. Worrying means that you
don't even want a solution, you want to worry. But when I say you at that
moment, you are your mind. The mind has its momentum. And the momentum wants to carry on. The worrying thoughts don't want to seize. They don't want to die. They want to continue to be
worrying thoughts (laughs). So, or other destructive thoughts, when you have very deeply negative, let's say you are trapped in deeply negative thought patterns. And every therapist knows
that often in therapy, you reach a point where a human being, there's a possibility of going beyond. And then the enormous resistance arises. They don't want to go beyond because there's the thought patterns. They don't want to die, they don't, they want to stay (laughs). So worrying, destructive
thoughts, useless thoughts, it's about to take you come
always out of the present moment that make it impossible for
you to even appreciate beauty and aliveness around
you that's always there. So you, that you need to be
have some of minimal awareness to realize that this is
what's happening to you. In the middle of the night, you wake up three o'clock in
the morning, anxiety arises. Why does it arise? Are you confronted with
the problem you're in bed or relatively warm bed? Anxiety arises, not be
confronted with a problem, but the mind is creating it. The mind is creating the anxiety. And so when you realize that you can then, learn to let go of thoughts that is recognized as
not only unnecessary, but actually bad for you (laughs) and everybody else around
you, you don't want it. You don't need it, but it has a momentum. So how do you break the
momentum of the thought? It doesn't seem to want to get go away. Once you recognize it that
it has no useful function except to make you miserable, so you've recognized it's this stopping that has no useful function
but it's making me miserable and that all the function. It has its spread tending to be useful. Worry always pretends to be necessary, but worry is not
necessary, it's unhelpful. Focus thinking, you become still. Then you begin to think,
what is the situation? What can I do about it? This and this and this. Okay, if I do that, focus
thinking that's great. Worrying is something very different, completely unhelpful and self destructive. Once you've recognized it, you become free by first by recognizing
its dysfunctional nature, then direct your attention elsewhere. It's a conscious choice
and that's possible. And it's not that difficult. So you withdraw energy from the thoughts. And an energy in this
case is consciousness. You withdraw the
lifeblood of the thoughts, which is consciousness and you direct consciousness
somewhere else. For example, sense perceptions, especially things of nature or breathing. You become aware of breathing and breathing makes your
way of the internal body, the alive presence that
it pervades your body. But the moment you become
aware of your breathing, you have taken the lifeblood from thought and placed the attention,
the conscious attention, into the inner body. So you connect with the aliveness within and immediately thought begins to subside. It cannot survive. If you take away attention
and consciousness from it, it then will try many times. It will try to get consciousness back. And so it would come up again the moment you lose
connectedness with the inner body or your breath, it will
try to start up again and then you have to catch it again. So you, and then you learn
to keep thought at bay. But not by suppressing it,
simply by being so alert and directing your attention elsewhere that it begins to subside. So vital practice is
to keep thought at bay, when you don't really, when you recognize it as
unnecessary, dysfunctional, and creating that it creates
a lot of unhappiness. So that's a wonderful practice. Just take your attention into your breath. (breathes heavily) You breathe into the body
and deep down to the abdomen (breathes heavily)and out. And breath awareness means you're no longer
trapped in your mind. You have taken attention
away from the mind. Simple practice of breath awareness. And breath awareness can
take you into body awareness and the two can go together. Your awareness of, you're
aware of your breathing and you're aware of
that your body is alive. (breathes heavily) And that becomes a single thing. The breathing and awareness
of the inner body. And so in this, when you discover
that you have that power, that you are more powerful than your mind, it's a wonderful
liberation to the discovery that is not actually that difficult. But you just have to know
that you have that power to become free of dysfunctional thinking. Just breath, feel the aliveness. That's who you are, not the
narrative in your mind (laughs). That's consciousness, the
consciousness, the intelligence that pervades your body. That is consciousness that
keeps the molecules of the body together for a while. That's the consciousness that is the totality of who you are. That's who you are, not
the story in your mind. It doesn't matter on
the level of the story that become secondary. You can drive to improve
your story, that's fine. Make your life a bit better
on the surface of things, that's a good, that has its place too. But not to ultimately, to look
for your ultimate identity on that level of this better
story that doesn't work. Your ultimate identity is here and now. When you step out of the thinking mind, but you don't become unconscious, you become more conscious of
the essence of who you are and become one of the
essence of who you are. And so the power of
awareness grows in you. It's gorgeous, you
become more aware of it. The powerful awareness or
of presence grows in you. And then you can still, your thinking then becomes more
constructive, more focused, and it's no longer a born thing. I sometimes put it like this. The mind loses its ability
to make you unhappy (laughs). The mind loses its ability
to make you unhappy, because then you realize
a lot of your unhappiness did not come from the
circumstances of your life, but from the way in which your
mind, the story of your mind, told you about the
circumstances of your life. A great deal of unhappiness
comes from the narrative in your mind and not
from the circumstances. And so that's enormous liberation. If you've been, whenever
you're unhappy, right? Where does the unhappiness arise? Where does it come from? Is it actually the actual situation, or is it the story that I'm
telling myself about it? And in most cases you'll
find it's the story. The unobserved mind
creates the unhappiness. The unobserved mind
creates the unhappiness. The unobserved mind also
creates what we can call evil in this world because the unobserved mind is the mind of very unconscious people. Unconscious means the unobserved mind. And the evil in this world is perpetrated by deeply unconscious people,
complete lack of awareness. And so all of, our step now is to go beyond the
dysfunctional state of humanity and so that we begin to
awaken to that higher or deeper level of consciousness. And the possibility is here now. The possibility is here now,
because if we don't awaken things will get worse and worse. We have reached a critical
point that humans only evolve when they reach a critical point. When there's no way of follow up in the old state of consciousness. So change happens when it actually, absolutely needs to happen. And it needs to happen now
and that's why it's happening. (soft music)
