I'm still mining the rich seam of insights gained from the online Listening World Summit that I attended a few weeks ago.
I loved a story that Aaron Turner related, about one of the first times he met Sydney Banks.
This was before he (Aaron) had been deeply impacted by the 3 Principles understanding and by his own admission, he was still trying to figure it all out.
At a meeting he attended, Syd had been talking for a while, and the Aaron Ego Construct 📦 had got stuck on what appeared to be a paradox – something Syd had said that seemed to contradict itself. It didn't make sense to him.
Believing information, categorisation and correctness to be the way forward, in a break he approached Syd and asked him to explain what he'd said more clearly, but received short shrift and a lighthearted reply,
“Oh Aaron – you're thinking too much!”
This was not the helpful response he was expecting and, in his own words, he found himself to be quite annoyed, thinking that this bloke who everyone's going on about being so enlightened has just completely dodged my question – what a fraud!!
😡
It was only many years later that Aaron realised what Syd meant by that response, and it's something I have seen quite a lot when people first come to the understanding (and I include myself in that cohort), with a mind full of questions.
I can tell when someone's in ‘trying to get it’ mode, because they'll get all tangled up in the details of my left brain/right brain metaphor diagram, taking it literally and trying to use it somehow; or they'll ask detailed questions about exactly how to let go of their thinking and be less bothered by it.
It's fine, it's normal, it's what minds do, but the ‘answers’ to these questions are only helpful to the degree that they ultimately lead you to thinking less, and living more.
And when we're all shook up and the mind's super-busy like this, then that's very unlikely to happen. Give an especially active ego an answer to its question—even a technically ‘correct’ one—and you're pretty much guaranteed it will then proceed to argue the toss with you!
😂
As Aaron related, this is probably what Syd meant when he told him “you're thinking too much” – his answers weren't going to be found in analysing stuff intellectually, and he was only ever going to see change once he'd got out from underneath all that thinking, and returned to presence.
This doesn't always (ever?) deliver the answers that the mind seeks—because usually, those are impossible expectations—but it gives us a deeper, wider perspective on what's going on in general; in particular this inconvenient fact:
Our experience of life is a mystery, full of paradox and wonder, and as humans, when push comes to shove, we know very little about anything, really.
The more you can relax into not knowing, and appreciate that you're just not going to unravel the mysteries of the Universe, the easier your life will become and, paradoxically, the more of it you will understand.
Think less. Live more.
😘
Giles
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