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“After I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, my perspective on life changed. I realized we are not defined by our mind and our thoughts. A higher level of consciousness is accessible to us and it does not need thought.” Resham Melwani, co-founder of Agora Curated
In our modern societies, we have grown more and more into thinking beings and forgot we came to this earth first as sentient beings with access to higher levels of consciousness. Understanding how we think and what is means to be conscious can help unlock the next level of thinking.
We’re not meant to be always thinking
We spent so much time in our heads that we forgot this is actually not the entirety of our being. We do not realize that this state of constant thinking is actually the main reason of our suffering, When we think too much we have the tendency to overthink and be out of balance. Taking a break from thinking through meditation or mindfulness practices can help us clear up negative thinking and stress.
Our mind is designed to create stories
One of a brilliant ideas the book explains is that our minds are designed to produces stories. These stories are made of past experiences and beliefs that are not necessarily true or relevant to us. Once you understand this mechanism you start looking beyond the mind and not at the mind.
You are not your thoughts
“The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity - the thinker. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated.”Most of the time we are caught up in thoughts and falsely believe in every single one of them. But you can actually learn to observe your thoughts without attaching to them. Once you take the observer sit you can start understanding the impact certain thoughts have on you.
Start looking beyond thought
Once you start observing your thoughts without judgment and attachment to them - you reach another level of consciousness that is beyond thought. You realize that “all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.”
Witness your own thoughts
Witnessing and observing thought is different from our default mode of thinking we are the creators of our own thoughts. All our thoughts are trying to do is use our experiences in life and make sense of the world and help us survive. This survival mechanism is sometimes good but most of the time it is protecting us from danger and holding us back. Observe your thoughts for a while: which ones are serving your inner growth, which ones are not?
Learn to disidentify from your thoughts
When you reach a higher level of consciousness you are able to look and listen to your thoughts without taking every thought seriously. You learn our minds create stories naturally, thoughts come and go. When you separate self and mind - you free yourself.
Experience inner peace
Higher levels of consciousness change your perspective in life - you start experiencing inner peace. When you are in that state of high consciousness - you are not so much impacted by stress, overwhelm or depression because you understand most of it is created by thoughts and belief systems of the mind.
Energy control
Thinking takes up a lot of our energy, most of it actually. When you start analysing the nature of your thoughts you might realize that a lot of them have a negative or harmful nature. Reaching a higher level of consciousness allows you to choose the type of thoughts you want to attach to and to belief and to discard the ones that do not serve you. That way you can control where you want to direct your energy.
Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness
Our minds and thoughts are only a small aspect of consciousness. “No-mind” is consciousness without thought. When you experience a state of no-mind through mindfulness techniques, you start to see what higher levels of consciousness are.
Learn to feel time differently
“The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with past and future, and so, as the vitality and infinite creative potential of Being, which is inseparable from the Now, becomes covered up by time, your true nature becomes obscured by the mind.” If you can learn to feel time differently by being in the Now more, you can unleash more of your creativity.
You might be interested to read our article about Uncertainty and ways to cope with it.
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