Everything that surrounds us was created by the mind Part 2

Let us go back to the child now; remember the one in the crib. The child slowly begins to associate values and properties to different object through experience. He/she learn to distinguish between the forms that move and pick him/her up to offer comfort. He/she learns that the round bottle means the pain in the stomach will go away. Little by little the kaleidoscope of light begins to be broken up into different images that have different meanings.

So what does the kid in the crib have to do with awareness? We are trained to relate as we experience to our existing experiences. This is why at times we are baffled by the behavior of certain people. We have nothing in our past experience to relate it to. We train ourselves to look at things in a certain way. This is dependent on our past experience and the emotional state we are in at the time. The same beam that we walk across will make us feel differently if we are ten feet above the ground as opposed to 1 foot.

Interpreting our environment and placing values on things is essential to ore survival and interaction in society. It can also, however, become limiting. We tend often to assume things about our environment and to miss details.

As people, we generally have three modes of thought. We can think of the past, present or future. In our memories, we think of past events and relate them to the present. In planning for the future, we base our future dreams and plans on the information and emotional state we hold in the present. All thinking takes place in the present. There is no way that we know of to go back to a past moment and experience it or to move to move to a future event before it becomes the present.

We can only recall the past as a memory, a pattern in our brain. You have no doubt experienced and historians will tell you that past events are always interpreted through the present state of mind. Future events can only be estimated based on the available information in the present. In this way, the only real state of mind is the present state of mind. This is the basis of all meditative study.

Meditation quite simply is experiencing the present moment without interpretation. When you have a few moments you may want to perform the following experiment.
At the end of a day think back at your activities and most importantly your thoughts.
Make a list of how often you were thinking of the past or you are planning for the future.
Remember that even as you do your job you are calling back past patterns of information and translating them into future events. You may be surprised at how little time you actually spend thinking of the present.

So what’s the big deal? Well, to think in the present is to experience life as it really is without looking through any filter, personal, social or otherwise. From this practice, your mind will gain a tremendous sense of release. Much of this will happen at a deep subconscious level at first. The more you practice, the more conscious the experience will become.

Have you ever been blindfolded and guide across a room by another person? You trust that the person will not lead you to harm, but you are still filled with fear and uncertainty. Once you take off the blindfold, you can see clearly the room around you and there is no longer any fear.

Meditation is a process of self-discovery and discovery of the world through your direct experience. There is so much uncertainty in life. This is why people are so unsure of their own thoughts. With beginning students, I often hear them say, that they experienced something, but they are not sure if they imagined it or not. I can relate to this, but only as a memory. The more you get to know your own mind, their clearer the distinctions between different states of mind will become. Mental fantasy and actual experience will become as different from you like fire and water.