The meaning of life.

I have heard Paul Lowe say that one's aim should be happiness. By this, I am sure that he means not merely the feeling of relief that things are going OK right now, but rather a deep contentment with life, no matter what it brings.

I see the ultimate aim as one of freedom, where one responds authentically to each and every moment, where one puts no limits on oneself, where one does not define oneself in any terms whatsoever.

In fact the word ‘freedom' is misleading, for it suggests the possibility of choice, whereas when one is being fully authentic, one paradoxically has no freedom to choose what to do or how to be – one just is. 

Got a problem?

90% of so-called problems are created by the mind, and are therefore not really problems at all; 9% of problems are due to external situations, and again are not really problems – at least, they are not psychological problems. Finally, the remaining 1% of problems are in fact intractable mysteries, and mysteries are things to be explored, not things to flee from.

These mysteries are ultimately what makes life worth living.

Over-analysis :)

Fear and desire come from the same space. I only use the mind when I'm afraid. All desires express fear. Everything we do with the mind is an expression of fear – it works from the original program: the fear of not surviving, the desire to survive. A desire is a fear – a fear is a desire. So every time I have a desire, I can ask: “What am I afraid of?”, and behind this is the original fear.

The mind (which is a defense system) can be compared to an army. An army exists because of fear: the fear of losing a war, which is the desire to win. On a day when everything goes badly in a war, one feels depressed. On a day when everything goes well, one feels good. Thus feelings are just battle reports. Any attempt to get information – the intelligence branch – is part of the defense system. All thoughts are part of this defense system, gathering data on potential enemies and perhaps some useful allies.

Thoughts are not necessary for survival. Needs are so simple to meet. The mind is a worry machine. Every time it moves (i.e. when I think), I am worried – about survival. Behind all emotions is fear. Happiness means “I'm not so afraid right now.”

Let it be the four-year-old in you that does the thinking, the worrying, the fearing, and let it be there and accept it and remember that it is worried about survival. There is no need to fight it, no need to try to stop it – in fact, this is counterproductive. Just bring it up to date with reality. You don't even have to know what it is worrying about – remind it that it is worrying about survival and that survival is no longer a problem. Just relax.

On beliefs.

Beliefs are not facts. Beliefs are ideas passed on by other people. Beliefs are projections from the past into the future. Beliefs take one away from reality. Living by one's beliefs is to live in unhappiness; living by one's beliefs is not living at all.

Perhaps I believe that I am not a very good person. Perhaps I can prove to myself and others that I am worthy, or better than others, by working really hard and achieving things. Perhaps my achievements will make others look up to me.

But do any of these beliefs make me happy? Or are they burdens that I carry around with me, without ever finding out whether they are valid?

Do not confuse belief with knowing. If you know something to be true, you do not believe in it - you know it. If you have any beliefs about yourself, this means that you do not know.

Don't just believe what people tell you, especially when they tell you things about yourself. They will almost certainly be wrong. Instead, find out for yourself. Once you are an authority on yourself, you will not swallow the rubbish that some people want to force on you.

LIFE philosphy.

All thinking is an effort to avoid facing what is. (J. Krishnamurti, First & Last Freedom)

Emotion analogy.

...we perceive a feeling in much the same fashion as we perceive a tree: something affects a nerve ending near the surface of the body, which causes a series of electrochemical reactions to travel up the nerve pathway to the brain, where a picture of a tree or the sensation of a feeling mysteriously appears in consciousness. When we're talking about an emotion type of feeling, some stimulus had produced a reaction that may then be felt as located in some area of the body, but again the feeling appears mysteriously in consciousness. In any case, since they're observable, we're not our feelings.

Meditation..again.

To find what we're looking for, which could also be described as ultimate certainty about what we are, we cannot rely on any external authority, no matter how much value we place on it. We must become our own authority. When we have peeled away the outer layers of what we once believed ourselves to be and are left with a belief in "this individual consciousness," we seem to come up against an impenetrable barrier.

The basic operation during meditation is one of looking.

Finding the real self is looking until what's looking is known.