All quotes from
Jac's book
Your mind
plays many tricks on you. Its subtleties
must be recognized for you to gain objectivity regarding such tricks. An effective trap is the thought that you
will be better off when…
Consider
that this is as good as it gets. Here
now is how it always will be.
Your
capacity to be happy does not improve when certain conditions are in
place. That is just a thought.
Mind
seeks limitations. It likes to play
safely, to be in control and manage things.
Your natural state is to be at peace, but mind only knows peace as a
concept so it will try to create peace for you.
Do
not stop short on your inner inquiry just because your mind is still. If you
can experience stillness, you will also experience agitation. All states have their opposite.
Mind
cannot and will not lead you out of mind.
Wanting
is suffering. Not wanting is the natural
state.
Therapies
can show you your patterns of thinking.
Skills can be learned to help you better engage with life. If this interests you, self-inquiry is not of
interest to you. Engaging with life
experientially has a stronger pull than the search for truth.
Consciousness
will find its own practice until it becomes more appealing to ask yourself who
is it that is practising.
Abiding
in the Self is not the reward for working through a process. There is nothing to work through.
Pay
no attention to what is presented by mind.
Your not that and it is not your concern.
The
healing industry, angels and chakra work, churches, religions and rituals are
not routes that lead to truth. They
offer experiences only.
Remain
thoughtless, egoless, without the personal, and a universal outstanding
prevails. There is no one to give, no
one to receive – just movements taking place in form. Settle in the freedom of understanding that
individuality is only a concept.
Do
not fool yourself into thinking that you have to work something out in order to
be what you already are. Effortlessly, you are That. Stay in quiet observance of any resistance in
your mind.
Be
the detached observer who is without judgment or preference, in this natural
state, you are not manipulating anything and you enjoy a delightful
indifference towards all that takes place.
To
choose is mind, to allow is mind, to serve is mind.
There is
nothing to do to be more of what you are.
If you believe that happiness is awaiting you in the future, then
rest assured it will never come. Be
prepared for a long wait, for that is simply an idea in your mind that keeps
happiness at arm’s length. Happiness is
a direct experience arising from your innate nature.
Arriving
at the place where you know that there must be more to life and to you, is an
opening, not a dead end. Your choice to
walk through this opening must be made in total awareness; this is not a rabbit
hole that you can peep into before deciding if you will enter. The choice is simple; take a risk or continue
as is and play it safe.
Spiritual practice involves actively ignoring the mind.
Experiences cannot change anything: they only have the power to do
so if you give it. Experiences come and
go, but their impact on you is determined solely by your level of
identification with them.
Your true identity lies much deeper than any experience that life
has presented you. If you have survived
the most horrendous ordeal, this does not make you special. It has nothing to do with who you are.
Your
level of self-esteem rests on two cornerstones; knowing that you are lovable
and knowing that you are capable.
There
is nothing to fear, ever. If you
continue to place attention on fear-creating ideas, knowing that your thoughts
create emotions, you will fear fear.
There
is nothing to fear when you trust the unfolding of life. Whatever is presented, no matter the scale,
you will respond then, as it happens.
In any moment, if you are not content and at peace with total
certainty, you can know that your mind has created this situation.
As
your understanding of your mind increases, you will recognize its tricks, its
convincing arguments and its ideas of how the world should be. Your mind believes that if things went
according to what you believe to be the right way then everything would be
fine. This is not the truth. This is a
game your mind uses to keep you resisting what is.
You
are in the world of your mind, seeing and reacting as one with your mind, as if
you are your mind. Usually, there is no
objectivity. While it may seem that life
is all-engrossing, the fact is that your mind has you engrossed. Life is busy at times, calm at times,
stressful much of the time and all these ideas about life are created through
the mind.
The
shift is from personal to impersonal.
Instead of events happening to you and taking everything personally,
they simply happen. All takes place
around you.
With
patience and calmness, direction will come from within.
All
that is required is a shift in perspective through removing a personal
agenda. Do not buy the idea that events
are all about you. Drop the mental
connection between who, how, what you are and daily life. Let your attention be on what is taking
place, not on how you fear it may impact you.
Mind
notices differences only and always seeks to acquire more. It is concerned with having and not having.
The human
mind is an instrument to be used when it is needed and put aside when it is
not. It is a tool like any other.
The
problem is not with the mind, it is the personal identification with thoughts
that creates suffering.
For
many, the desire to make a difference in the lives of others or the planet
motivates their life. Like everything,
this has is place and plays a part in the playing out of a grand design. Making a difference is a motivation from the
mind. It arises when there is a belief
that things are not okay and that work needs to be undertaken to make things
better, to make things right. All is
well. All unfolds perfectly.
The
thinking mind seeks purpose, but in truth there is no purpose to any of it.
There
is no answer that will lead to the why of it all. But what there is, is usefulness. Usefulness can serve as the highest purpose
if your mind seeks reasons for living and taking action.
If
you identify with the phrase “I want happiness”, you can simply remove the “I”
as an identification with body and mind and get rid of “want” by dropping
desires. What remains? Without “I” and
“want”, happiness alone remains. It is
as simple as this.
There
is no “how” to stop thinking. Simply
stop getting involved in the stories of your thoughts.
Just
be quiet, be still and stop participating in the imaginary world created by
your thoughts.
