We had the Daily Reminders monthly group call the other night, and there were some great questions.
All of which got answered, by me, using concepts.
There are all sorts of abstract ideas we use in the Innate Health/3 Principles community… like ‘Innate Health’ and ‘3 Principles’ for instance!
😂
It's all just language – a wonderful human invention that gets me out of bed every day and fills me with delight, either immersing myself in other people's use of it or creating these Daily Reminders for you.
I love language. But it's a pretty blunt tool, when it comes to trying to describe the infinite, majestic, awe-inspiring, indescribable essence of our spiritual being.
Which is all I’m ever pointing towards, really.
When concepts help
There’s a fantastic interview online with Dicken Bettinger, who worked directly with Syd Banks, back in the 80’s and 90’s.
In this interview (which is the clearest discussion of free will I've ever come across) he talks about Syd’s use of concepts, and says that,
“He used them as a way of trying to point us beyond concepts – trying to point us out of our head, into a space that’s free of concept … our True Nature.”
And in my own special Giles-Ego-Construct-📦-flavoured way, that’s what I’m doing when I’m answering your questions with metaphors and stories and concepts and props – I’m not giving you tools that you can use, I’m pointing you back within, to something quieter and more real than analytical thought, concepts and beliefs.
(I’m guessing that’s why you keep showing up.)
That’s when concepts are helpful. When they allow us to fall out of our thinking and back into the always-available experience of presence and wellbeing.
When they help us to ‘think less, and live more’.
✨
When concepts don’t help
We’ve all butted up against conceptual teachings that we don’t understand. I know I certainly have, and continue to do so.
(Frustratingly—to the mind—sometimes I’ll seemingly ‘get’ some concept and not be bothered about it all, and then another time I’ll be getting my knickers in a twist about it, all over again! 😵💫)
And minds don’t like ‘not understanding’. At all.
So they try and figure it out. They think that intellectually understanding a concept will help. Because they don’t know that the actual utility in a concept… is in the falling away of concept.
🙃
And that’s the position that someone on last week’s group call found themselves in. They’d heard a podcast, there was a concept in there that didn’t make sense and their mind had been gnawing away at it, to the degree that they (well, the Subscriber Ego Construct 📦) ached for clarity, believing a discussion with me would help.
Again, I’m sure every last one of us has been in this position, and I’ve certainly had plenty of instances where I've grabbed a concept and tried to shake some sense out of it with my powers of reason, so I can rest.
It's innocent, but that’s when concepts are not helpful. When they keep us stuck in our thinking and distract us from the always-available experience of presence and wellbeing.
When they cause us to ‘think more, and live less’.
😫
So don't ask questions – is that it?
No, of course not. Curiosity is the way forward – question everything!
Just be aware that the answers you'll get—the deeper realisations that actually change things for you—aren't dependent on the mind understanding anything.
The mind can't do this. Concepts won't do it. Beliefs aren't the way forward. Ego doesn't have a role here.
The idea that we have to understand a concept before we can experience the inner peace we all yearn for is just another “I'll be happy when…” script in disguise.
So if a concept is helping, then great!
But if it's not, don't worry at it. Just drop it, and move on.
Think less, and live more.
💝
Giles
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Giles P Croft