The Choice Of Your Life

The choice of your life is the choice between remaining as presence and declining the invitations of egoic mind and go into personal drama and suffering. It is the choice between happiness and unhappiness.

Transcript

So I want to go into a theme I've touched on on various occasions.

But I want to sort of focus in on it because I think it's a really good way of looking at the situation,

The human predicament.

And I first talked about this with my mentor a while ago,

And I think it's a really good way of looking at what's happening.

Now we find ourselves,

Don't we?

We're doing meditation,

We're doing our spiritual practice,

Whatever it is.

And again and again,

We seem to find ourselves in a familiar place with familiar thoughts,

Familiar views,

Familiar doubts,

Familiar confusion,

Familiar emotions.

And how do we,

How do I get out?

I keep finding myself back in here,

Which is actually part of the journey.

It's like a cycling back.

It's a cycling through each time to slightly deeper and deeper levels or higher and higher levels.

But let's look at actually what's happening.

Let's look at it slightly differently.

And I want to look at thoughts in particular,

And we'll include emotions,

But particularly thoughts.

Because most of you can see now that you're not your thoughts,

And you agree.

Think a thought,

Or actually just for a few moments,

Just be aware.

Now think a thought,

Any thought.

Any thought.

Now stop,

Be aware.

So you were aware of that thought,

Were you not?

There was an awareness of that thought.

It appeared and disappeared.

But did you appear and disappear?

You didn't.

You wouldn't be here.

Otherwise you'd have sort of,

There'd have been a complete nothingness after the thought had gone,

Until the next thought.

So because thoughts are really so close to us,

So to speak,

There's so much identification with them.

We overload them with importance.

Oh,

One way we can view thought is there.

Let me put it another way.

Imagine that each day you get a delivery of postcards.

Yeah,

And they're all rather a bit sort of threatening and nasty and negative.

You know,

The odd one is,

You know,

Nice,

But the bad one is,

You know,

Nice,

But the vast majority just,

Yeah,

They just leave you feeling,

Oh,

Really down and depressed and miserable and unsure and doubtful and ill at ease.

So imagine we get lots of those postcards.

Invitations.

Let's call them invitations.

Because what are they inviting you to do?

Because these postcards are thoughts.

They get delivered just as the postman or woman puts the postcard through the letterbox.

So let's,

For want of a better term,

Let's call it ego mind,

Delivers thoughts to you in the same way.

That's what they do,

Or that's what it does.

And it knows you,

The ego mind knows you very well,

Because it knows your weaknesses.

So it sends the invitations,

It will get your attention,

So there might be answers.

Attention.

So there might be anxious invitations,

Invitations to anxiety.

And so you pick up the postcard or even just look at it on the mat.

And you know what's going to be there.

You know they're going to be threatening or make you anxious or ill at ease.

You know it.

Because they've been coming through for years and decades through.

Through.

Every day.

And yet you keep going there.

Or you keep going there.

Now,

If you were getting deliveries,

Invitations,

Postcards through the door.

And what would you do after a while?

You'd like realize,

Actually,

I'm just going to ignore them.

And after a while,

These deliveries,

Because you're ignoring them,

What would happen?

You stop getting them.

Because the person,

Let's say it's a person who's inviting you,

Is not being fed.

It's not like,

Well,

Hang on,

I'm sending these postcards,

You need to respond.

I've invited you to a birthday party.

You're not responding.

What would happen?

What would happen?

Let's stop inviting you.

You could sit here.

You could be at home.

So mind is sending invitations your way.

And the problem is we keep accepting the invitations.

It might be I'm not good enough invitation.

So it's around that theme.

I can't do meditation.

Might be around that theme.

I'll never succeed in life.

Might be around that theme.

So what you give your attention to is what you get.

What you receive.

It's like social media.

If you click on something,

What happens?

You get more of it.

So instead of clicking on those anxious,

Or taking receipt of those anxious invitations,

Or those threatening invitations,

Or even the hopeful invitations,

What they're doing,

They're taking you out of your true nature,

Your presence.

Yeah,

Your aware presence.

That's what they're doing.

And they're designed that way because the ego mechanism is only interested in one thing.

Its own survival.

And it needs your attention.

It needs your your food.

So every time you take receipt of one of these invitations,

You're strengthening.

You're consenting.

Yes,

I will give you my attention,

And you will become stronger.

Now,

The first mistake we fall into,

Or one of the early mistakes we fall into,

As we begin a meditation practice,

Is that we try to stop the invitations.

Try to stop thinking.

It doesn't work.

You're just empowering them.

It doesn't work.

So when the invitations come in,

I'm going to do a meditation around this,

Okay,

And this one.

Maybe in this session,

We'll see.

But if not,

I'll record a meditation on this theme.

So our work,

If you like,

Is to,

When we're in one of the invitations,

Let's just do a minute or two minute exercise looking at this.

And it might be best to close your eyes for this one,

Because you tend to get more thought when you close your eyes.

That's why a lot of meditation traditions have their eyes open.

So not all,

And you don't need the eyes open.

But anyway,

Just close your eyes for this,

And just sit in presence.

Look at the back of the eyelids.

Look at the back of the eyelids.

Now I want you to notice when an invitation comes,

No matter what it is,

An invitation appears,

And I want you to notice how you accept it,

You get involved in it,

But then there's a moment of choice.

Am I going to go with this?

Am I going to remain here?

Okay,

Am I going to get involved,

Remain involved?

Am I going to remain here?

So close your eyes for a minute or two.

What choice are you going to make?

Okay,

That was probably enough for you to have a few thoughts.

I hope you're seeing where I'm pointing to.

It's taking receipt of the invitation,

The thought,

And we get involved in it,

Don't we?

And that becomes your world.

And it all feels very real.

Then,

If we're in there long enough,

It produces,

Creates an emotion.

Then it becomes even more real,

And oh,

Now I feel terrible.

So I want you to practice this,

And I want you to practice it,

So I want you to practice.

At that point,

There's a choice.

I'm going to stay in this virtual world with its misery-making.

I'm going to remain here.

This one moment,

This moment,

Once this starts to take hold,

Once you start to see this,

It changes everything.

Ah,

Oh my goodness,

That just,

I've been accepting these invitations for 40,

50,

60 years.

What?

Now,

Don't get me wrong.

Some of the invitations,

A small minority,

Are useful.

It might be about phoning the doctors or go to the grocery store or the supermarket.

But you know that.

You know,

You see it as it comes in,

And okay,

Oh yeah,

I'll get some da-da-da-da.

But let it go.

Go to the supermarket when it's time to go to the supermarket.

It's just a reminder.

It's this.

It's this choice.

We don't see that we have a choice.

We have a choice when awareness pops back,

Because it always does.

Just see invitation,

And you can get a,

You get a sense of the quality of it,

Anxious or doubting or naggy or judging or whatever.

It's that simple.

And as we remain as presence,

Being presence,

Not even being present,

It's being presence.

It isn't a thing.

It's your nature.

It's the nature of the universe.

That's what it is.

It's the nature of everything.

You start to get a taste of,

You begin to get a taste of it.

And it's like,

Oh yes,

I like this.

It's present.

It's permanent.

It's stable.

It's calm.

It's loving.

It's all those things that we've been wanting in our life.

It's already here.

That's the jewel in the block of ice I've talked about before.

It's here.

But then we look at this through the filter of the mind,

And we think,

Well,

This is not much.

This is not exciting.

There's no drama.

There's no drama here.

So we're back in the invitations again,

Because the invitations,

The ego mechanism,

Egoic conditioning,

Is not interested in presence.

No.

Once you start to get a taste of presence,

It's the end of the game.

That's why at first it seems so difficult to get out of ego,

Because it's dragging you back in,

And we don't see it.

Hey,

Come on.

Dropping postcards through your letterbox.

This will get them.

This always gets them.

Put that one through.

Just that.

As I say,

We'll do a longer meditation on this.

I'll send,

I'll record it.

I'll send it to you.

I'll send it to you.

So that.

See,

None of this is complicated.

None of this takes any thinking about.

You can't do this through thinking,

Because what you are is prior to thinking.

Presence,

Awareness,

Is prior to thinking.

Thinking happens within it.

So you can't do this through thinking.

You can't do this through thinking.

Presence,

Awareness,

Is prior to thinking.

Thinking happens within it.

But because you're so fixated on thinking,

On thoughts,

On the invitations,

You take what thought says to be everything.

Thought says this must be true.

Must be true.

Thought says it.

And as we dwell more in presence,

What happens is we can use the mind when it needs to be used.

We can utilize it for its intended purpose.

Because it's a tool.

It's an instrument.

So if there are any questions or points,

Guys,

Any time.

Okay.

Thank you.

Reviews

So wonderful. I love your metaphors and comparisons. For sure made me laugh. Thank you 🙏