“You think about things so much that you get into the state where you’re eating the menu instead of the dinner.”
— Alan Watts
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I had a … I’m stuck for adjectives here …
Lovely? Amazing? Powerful? Growthful? Life-affirming? ...
Words fail me, for once. Let’s just say, I had a great Ascension course weekend just been.
Part of it was the sheer joy in comparing notes with a bunch of people who want to know how to be more alive.
Most of it was sharing the palpable presence when a bunch of people have the means to get out of their heads and into the present moment.
That’s the key ingredient to people I want to be around – the prioritising of being present and TRULY experiencing life.
Yet so often in a spiritual or inner or philosophical path (actually, any path or pursuit) it becomes about knowledge – gaining the next piece of information and seeking to understand it to the extent we value thinking about it rather than being it.
Even in the guise of seeking to understand what our biggest limiting beliefs might be … noble it may seem, and useful when guided through on rare occasions, but it is very much so overdone and over chewed upon – the result being that regardless of the intention, it removes us from the goal: Life, right now.
As the great Alan Watts noted, people get into a state where they’re more used to eating the menu than the meal.
Given a choice between thinking about your favourite food and actually eating it, you’d choose plate to mouth 100% of the time. Choosing to chew on printed cardboard describing the concept of the meal is completely missing the point. But that’s what we do!
But we’ve got into this state where we’re so stuck in thinking we’ve forgotten how to truly live.
It’s ridiculous, and a shame, because life lived extremely well is so simple. You don’t need more knowledge. You don’t need anything. You just need to let go of everything you’re not; you just need to let go of everything that is holding you back from experiencing now.
The bottom line is this: If in doubt, get present.
Thinking only removes us from life, it never adds to it. This present moment is life itself. It will show you what it needs; it might even show you what to do next.
Here you rely on your mind less; it stops running your life all through the past and the future – but never here.
Here you become your own expert, your own guide in living your highest life; you start to walk your authentic path.
Here you can form your own direct relationship with what is true and valuable and important and sustaining to you. You form your own relationship with your higher Self; rather than filtering all of it through the received wisdom of your culture.
See clearly! Live clearly!
That’s the invitation. It’s the destination and the next step: Assume nothing, experience everything freshly, here and now.
This is life itself. Don’t think about it. Drop the mind and enter into it.
Now, if you need help breaking the habit of thinking, the Ishayas have a set of tools and a path so you can free yourself of the habit of reaching for the cardboard rather than the supreme tastiness and nourishment of now.
Last course for 2021 here in Richmond, N Yorks, is 5-7 November.
Let me know if you’d like a seat.
Go well!
Arjuna