"That's not actually me" -- the mantra to everything.
It's hard to believe I am 31 now and have dabbled for small and long periods of meditation, psychedelics, vegetarianism, esoteric and eastern study, loving kindness, starting my own business, becoming a success, had a kundalini awakening, created wealth when I lived my life poor, going completely off drugs and stimulants and returning back to marijuana, being so high and full of love that I forgave everyone, talked to strangers, and smiled at people down the street, then seeming to not be able to connect to anyone at all - there have been a fair share of highs and lows.
I have been staying up late playing videogames, smoking marijuana, online shopping on occasion (or at least browsing), browsing social media and fixated on sexual pleasure when I'm not working. I jump from one thing to another depending on how bored I am of the rest.
I find I'm doing these things because there is still something inside of me that is empty.
I think about death a lot, or at least that's what I believed.
The other night while going to bed super stoned I was laying down and was going down a deep thought trip about death - my own personal death and the death of my loved ones. This has been happening on and off for a number of years, especially under these circumstances.
I calmed myself down and told myself "It's the weed inducing paranoia which is manifesting itself into a complex about death and dying"
Although I know this to be the truth, it's hard to find solace in that realization because it feels like its not just "paranoia" but really ME! -- not something that is dictated by external factors. I completely believe it's me under my own free will thinking about it.
Coming to terms with the realization that this entire game I get myself into is nothing more than paranoia induced by marijuana, I said "That's not actually me" and poof - I saw the whole melodrama as object and it lost it's attachment.
I took some time to sit with that and let it sink in.
its not actually me
its not actually me
its not actually me
the entire thing went from being me to being something outside of me
Then I thought "Well, if that is so attaching and juicy to trap me again and again, that must mean that every single thought form is 'not actually me'. Every single thought then is nothing more than the brain reacting to stimulation of the external world. It's not actually me.
As someone who is in their own head a lot, talk about liberating.
Now I see the desire for sex
the desire for weed and videogames
the desire to online shop
the desire to gossip or go on facebook, instagram, etc.
'its not actually me'
I know these things are different than thought forms, but I can use that mantra now as soon as the spark of desire appears to do some of these things.
what i am is behind all of that
even behind the thought of 'it's not actually me'
In bringing that thought into my waking consciousness and becoming that
I realize the ultimate truth - the mind is the matrix, keeping you locked in. it acts in so many different ways to constantly keep you reinforced in believing you have caught it, destroyed it, or are in control of it. it's a shadow that you cant get rid of. "thats not actually me" is such a good tool to bring you back to truth and presence.
every now and then I make huge jumps in my personal development and if it's critical enough, I share. I hope you can take something from this.
I'm starting to really believe and understand that we have next to no free will as long as we are doing things. It's just being done by our relationships to the external world.
who we are is behind all of that and when the business in our lives and minds has subsided, we come back to that.