Attribution

Important note: All the posts on this blog were written by Bob Harwood (AKA 'zendancer') on the forum spiritualteachers.proboards.com. I have merely reposted a collection of them in blog format for the convenience of seekers. Some very small mods were made on occasion to make posts readable outside of the forum setting they were made in.

ATA and thinking flip flop

Someone wrote to me: "I start thinking, then start worrying, and then shift attention to what I can see or hear (which ends the worry). After a while this happens again. I think about this flip-flopping mental battle, and find that frustrating. I then remember to shift attention to what is seen or heard, and the frustration goes away. If I go to sleep, it is like hitting a reset button, but the whole thing starts again later."

This is what happens until what's happpening is fully understood. You already hold the secret. The battle will only continue until the real "you" walks off the battlefield. The real "you" is not "John" (or whatever your name is), as you already know. That One's purpose, beyond this moment, cannot be known; it can only be lived.

I know a middle-aged person who is always saying, "I have never found my true purpose and passion in life." This always makes me laugh, and I tell him that he's been telling himself the same lie for many years. He argues with me because he imagines that there is some wonderful avocation he has never found that (if he could find it) would pay him tons of money to do something he loves. This is a big abstract idea that dominates his thinking. I love to tease him and say, "Well, you knew to get out of bed this morning at the appropriate time, and you fulfilled your purpose in life perfectly all day long. Why do you insist on imagining that anything is wrong with your life?

Do you see the pattern? TMT! WTMT! WTMFT! WTMEMLFT! The truth is sooooooooooo simple.