Why Meditate?

John Morris talks about meditation, how to deal with worry, the role of the mind, and your relationship to identity.

Transcript

For so many people,

When they think of meditation,

They think of something that looks good and a bit of a groovy thing to do.

Especially the way in which it's being touted now,

You know,

You see all sorts of symbols of people doing all sorts of things.

It's sort of become socially acceptable to be a meditator,

Which is a great thing in a sense.

I think it's a wonderful thing.

But when I talk to people about why you're doing your meditations and they just say,

Well,

To still my mind a bit,

I go,

Well,

To me,

It's not about stilling my mind.

That's not the goal.

For me,

The goal is I want to be in a state of ultimately pure love.

I know that as I resolve things and change things inside of me,

That well of love inside just increases.

And it's not as though it actually increases on its own.

What it does is it's always there,

But you can see a lot more of it and feel a lot more of it.

Because it always was there in any case.

Meditation is just a facility where you clear the decks so that you're more at one with yourself.

Because a lot of people believe that their mind is them rather than believing,

Which I do,

Your mind is a tool.

Your mind can never be you because you came here long before you were given a language.

And if you turn around and listen to your mind,

It talks in English or whatever country you came from.

Or it talks in terms of patterns and colors or sounds,

Which some people have.

Or it talks in terms of feelings,

Which are then interpreted into words.

But that's not you.

The majority of your memories,

The majority of what you carry in terms of memory or in terms of data in your hard drive isn't you.

They're tools or they're information that we've gathered over a long period of time,

Sometimes beyond this life.

And there's an enormous amount of information that you inherit from both your parents,

Which they also inherited.

So there's that huge bank of data that comes from your lineage.

That's not you either.

It's really interesting.

People turn around and go,

Oh,

That's me.

I'm an Aboriginal.

Or that's me.

I'm a Caucasian.

Or that's me.

I'm an Englishman or Frenchman or whatever.

I am.

It's really interesting.

People go,

I,

A lot.

I am this and I am that.

I go,

But that's pretty temporary.

I know so many people who say,

I am French.

And then they get dispossessed and wind up in a different country.

I go,

Well,

Are you French now?

Are you living in France now?

Not really.

All you hold is the language and a whole lot of data from it.

But that's not you.

When you leave this life,

An enormous amount of your data is going to change big time.

But it's a wonderful thing to clear the decks.

I use meditation to clear the decks so that I can experience more of myself.

More of my true self.

Not my false self.

I enjoy my intellect.

I enjoy the way in which it plans things out.

I enjoy the way in which it creates strategies to do things.

I enjoy the way in which it helps to solve lots of puzzles.

And I'm not talking about a puzzle book for a four year old.

Although sometimes I think it's about the level I'm at.

Or you go do an IQ test and you don't come out too well.

It's like,

Oh,

That's disappointing.

It's interesting,

When I was growing up as a kid,

My maths teacher said,

Whatever you do,

Don't feed John any sugar before any exam or when he's got to think.

Because if he has any sugar on at all,

His thinking's gone.

You say,

Tada,

To it.

Interesting how different things affect the intellect.

But I look at it and I go,

Sure,

My intellect is an interesting toolbox full of lots of great tools.

Are those tools me?

Nope.

They're all things that were given to me.

Do I own them?

Nope.

They're only held as a memory.

To be able to build a car and having it held as a memory,

It's still only a memory of how to build a car.

It doesn't necessarily mean to say to build a car.

So I'm not that car.

I might have some of the tools to build it.

But that doesn't make me a mechanic.

And even if I was a mechanic,

I'm only a mechanic between 8 a.

M.

And 4.

30.

After that,

What am I?

Gosh,

It could be all sorts of different things.

So it's interesting to have an interesting toolbox,

But it's interesting to have something far more powerful and stronger,

Something that's infinitely far more expansive and infinitely greater.

Because all my tools,

They're small things.

Even as a physicist or whatever,

I'm not saying I'm a physicist,

But even as a physicist,

Even with all their mathematics,

Et cetera,

Et cetera,

They're still small tools.

I know one physicist.

He can hardly tie a shoelace.

All the tools in his head in terms of mathematics doesn't make him very functional in this world.

He can solve mathematical puzzles theoretically.

Because most of it's just theory.

Half of what we know or most of what we know we can't prove yet.

So it's a mighty machine.

And if you feed it good information,

Generally it gives good information back.

If you feed it garbage,

Generally it'll turn out garbage.

And that's before you get to the stuff that we've inherited.

I mean,

For some people,

They spend a lot of time worrying.

Notice that?

Most people spend a lot of time worrying.

Some aspects are associated with fear.

I'm worried about this.

I'm worried about that.

Because you're trying to avoid fear,

Trying to find something that'll cushion you from fear.

Some people's worries are genuine concern for someone.

And it's in an effort to try and find a solution to a problem.

Generally worrying doesn't work.

Have you ever noticed that when you worry about something and then you let it go and you go away and do something else,

All of a sudden an answer just pops into your head.

Just go,

Where did that come from?

You get inspired from somewhere else.

For me,

Worrying about things is the most useless thing I can do.

What I do is I divide it into different sections.

I go,

Okay,

I'm worried about this.

I ask myself,

Is it motivated through fear?

If it is,

Get rid of it.

Get rid of the fear.

That's what I do for me.

I'm not saying you do the same,

But this is what I do for me.

The other aspect of worry is I'm trying to influence an outcome.

You know when somebody's in danger or whatever and you worry about them or worry about your kids or whatever.

It's because you're still wanting to control them or control an outcome.

I look at it and I go,

Well,

Instead of worrying about them,

My motives will send them love and support.

Because if I send somebody a lot of love or if I'm working with people and they're getting a lot of love from me,

Generally we can find solutions.

Notice when you're actually feeling quite a lot of love from deep within inside and your mind isn't so active,

It's easier to find solutions.

That's another strategy I do.

The other thing is I could be worrying about something that's none of my business.

That's a big one for a lot of people.

Worrying about someone or something that is none of your affair.

It's this.

It's something that that person should worry about for themselves and find a solution.

But if they won't let you,

If somebody doesn't want to let you in,

Doesn't want to let you in their life and they don't want you to solve their problems for them.

If they don't want you there,

It doesn't matter what you do,

It doesn't matter how much you worry,

It doesn't matter how much a mother will worry about a child.

If the child doesn't want the parent there,

There's no way she's going to be able to influence that child,

Especially if that child is 35 or 40 years old.

Same if you've got siblings,

Brothers and sisters who are in trouble.

No amount of worrying about them if they don't want you to touch their problems.

They want to do it themselves.

You can worry for 20 years and it won't make a dotted difference.

All you've done is spent 20 years worrying about trying to create a change that never changed.

So they're the three strategies that I do.

Because if I catch myself worrying,

They're the three questions I ask myself.

Reviews

It didn't seem to be the entire talk but I loved it!

Awesome talk! Worry doesn't add anything to our life. So good.

Nice insight. Thank you.