THINKING DIFFERENTLY

Please remember that “functional mind” (using the thinking mind as a tool) and “thoughting” (aimless wandering mind; stuck in the past; fearing the hypothetical future) are entirely two different things!
 
Thinking differently about (or not thinking about) oneself entails getting a sense of “healthy detachment” (vairagya) from thoughts. 

According to Advaita (the ‘non-dual”) philosophy of India, the thinking mind can be regarded as the repository of all of our previous programming and conditioning from many sources: media, advertising, society, family, stories, past experiences to name a few. It is as if we have been hypnotized hundreds of times to believe what we believe! This process puts filters on our direct perception of what is real.

Ayurveda and TCM teach us that an internalized experience of “fear is what keeps me safe” will deplete the kidney and adrenal energy and over time this creates a tendency to manifest as a disease process in the urinary tract and nervous system. This process is largely unconscious - out of one’s awareness.

Someone else who has been taught “we must fight to stay alive” will heat up their liver and gall bladder meridians and over time this attitude creates a tendency toward issues in the bile flow and hepatic system.
 
There are many such examples about how our psychosomatic nature fosters disease or health.
 
How one thinks about oneself positively or negatively affects a person’s health!

If you were to read a transcript of your thoughts over a given day, would it be a fascinating account of what it means to be alive? Or would it be a repetitive account of old stories and negative things you tell yourself?

A good first step is to acknowledge that the current mental/emotional position may not faithfully represent reality, because of learned conditioning.  
 
We all wear a different shade of glasses that distort the view. This idea may be hard to swallow at first. To the beginner, it may mean that we are wrong about everything! To the more seasoned spiritual practitioner, it is remembered that we were all naïve and innocent when these negative views were being introduced to us!
 
When the mental contents are regarded as “provisional” and NOT regarded as “gospel”, then our mental and bodily health improves, because our very cells are no longer burdened by false beliefs about ourselves!

Once we can sit in the stillness and silence of peace and deep quiet, we realize what a chatterbox the discursive mind really is… the destiny of someone who begins to understand that the experience of healthy detachment is liberation from the tyranny of mental programming and conditioning (no worries, we all were/are conditioned to think in certain ways).