Sounds like I am beating a dead horse here, but after many decades of learning and taking courses and reading books, and probably mostly the Sedona Method of letting go of all of the basic human wants, I am finally quiet enough to hear my own mind.

I know you are already saying “wtf is he talking about?” That is exactly what I am talking about. The little voice in your head that is talking to you right now. You are not capable of listening without simultaneously talking to yourself. You are barely capable of doing anything without talking to yourself. Everyone is trying to help you achieve a tiny moment of peace and quiet, or “no mind”

The moment when the constant chatter in your brain stops for a moment. You know what I am talking about because you have known it for a few seconds here and there. You were standing watching a magnificent sunset and taking in all of its glory for a few seconds. Then your mind jumped in and pushed “you” out of that experience and started talking to you about how you can capture that photo and share it on your Facebook, and you were off to the races. The fast talking “self talk” resumed. Back to 50 to 90,000 repetitive thoughts for the rest of the day. I am assuming you have read we all have that many thoughts a day, most of which are not only repetitive but negative as well.

You experienced it while you were in the moment of ecstasy when you were making love. In fact Osho, the famous Indian guru, often said westerners can never grasp the point of ecstasy and or quiet, or enlightenment, except for during sex, or that one moment in sex. So he was often dissed as the sex guru. But he was merely trying to help us get a glimpse of peace in that ecstatic moment when all is right in the world with nothing to say and no chatter in your brain. So he often encouraged sex at his retreats.

Then there are those that will tell you to meditate by chanting a mantra. But if you are focusing on chanting a mantra are you truly being quiet or silent or no mind?

The Sedona Method, who I give a lot of credit to, will dive into your thoughts to uncover your feelings. Somehow when we get to the core of what we are feeling, it is often wanting approval of some form, or wanting security, or control of something. You then practice letting go of it, even if its just for a split second. Its as easy as dropping a pencil, just to experience, for a second, the letting go of your wants. PS it magically drops so much of what is in your brain, that sometimes my brain is firing like crazy as all that was attached to that “want” collapses. I find it the most efficient of all methods. Try my friend David if you want to experience that. He is in the back under resources of businesses I like.

The paths that we take are countless. What about running 5 miles until you get to the “runners high” and perhaps a moment of “no mind” and bliss, and just feeling great?

What I have found, or only recently recognized, has probably been happening many times in my life, but I havent been able to articulate it, is that after no mind, a real mind arises.

Once you quiet the chatter. Once you stop thinking the 90,000 thoughts you thought yesterday, there is room for something new. A real new thought. A novel idea. A concept or idea that you are originating. Granted sometimes its something that upon further research has already been said. But so far I am finding that the thoughts that are coming are truly mine.

It is taking ingredients I have heard over the years and baking a new cake that is mine. It has a different texture, a different taste, a different look, a different number of layers, different frosting, a different flavor. The beauty is that it is not the same thoughts I have had millions or is it billions of times? PS unless you invented the alphabet or words, what is original anyway?

Hey lets look at that as a thought I just originated. So lets go with the lower number 50,000 thoughts a day but 90% of them are the same ones as yesterday and the day before. So lets look at a person that is 50, a mean point in a life. That person has thought 18 million thoughts that year alone, or 900 million thoughts in 50 years, almost a billion and way more if you go with the 90,000 thought a day number.

To think that 90% of them are the same. What a waste of a life. So a long lived life with the higher number is probably 2 billion thoughts and it was literally wasted because nothing was created or originated or truly thought of, it was simply repetitive thoughts. What a waste of a mind, Talk about a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Seriously 90% of our life is wasted thinking repetitive thoughts? Thats insane, I should just quit my job and focus on changing that. Because we all know its true. The minute you stop reading this you will go back to yesterdays thoughts repeating themselves on an endless loop in your brain.

One minute is around 40 to 50 thoughts but at least 80% of them are repetitive or negative. Think about this. If we could even spend one minute “thinking” vs repeating or thinking negative thoughts imagine what we could create or what we could do.

How about a modest goal of one minute of thinking per day? Sounds crazy doesnt it? Well that is my original thinking because lately I am not busy thinking the same stupid thoughts I had yesterday. Ironically I have more problems today than I have ever had, but I know I will take care of them when its time to take care of them. Needless worry is a waste of my mind. I have so much more to discover and explore and cogitate and create. Its like my life is literally just beginning.

You cant avoid being programmed most of your life. And you need to spend decades deprogramming yourself so you can actually “Think” with a capital T or create. Not ruminate and run your script of the 50,000 thoughts you thought yesterday,

Think about it, LOL there is that word again. I am putting together a bunch of different thoughts and ideas I have learned from a variety of sources. As humans we are the one animal that spends the most amount of time with their parents. That is a fact. No other animal on the planet spends that much time with their parents. As you know at least 15 to 18 years minimum. Perhaps if animals spent that much time with their parents they would be neurotic too LOL.

Think about the programming humans get vs animals. What about the fact that our programing is overwhelming because in addition we have language. So if you didnt get the lesson that your parents were trying to teach you, or program you with, they would explain it to you in words. In fact with words and consequences. If you keep playing your guitar vs studying you will be grounded.

Imagine how many lives were stunted, how many musicians were not allowed to create music, how many actors were not allowed to act, how many inventors were not allowed to daydream that great invention that never happened due to well meaning parents.

So from the moment you are born in order to survive you had to please or get the approval of your parents. So before you could even talk you learned to smile, that crying might even get you isolated or Ferberized. God only knows the lessons we learned as an infant. Even if you were lucky enough to have the greatest parents on this planet they were training you or programming you in everything. They taught you what to eat how to speak, what words to use, what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior. Their well meaning goal was to give you a better life then they had.

But, what about the parents that refused to let the artists be creative. There are countless stories of people in mid life who walked away from being a lawyer or another “profession” to become an artist of some sort, a musician. Imagine what they could have created if they were allowed to be an artist their whole life.

Would Beethoven or Mozart be allowed to create if they were born today? Would we even have the magic of their music?

Then you went to school for at least 12 or 16 years. You are then taught that imagining, or creating or visualizing, aka daydreaming, was bad and following the rules was good. Speaking your mind was bad, original thinking was bad, spontaneity might even get you expelled from school. Rote learning was the accepted way for at least 12 years. Crush the spirit inside you, dont think for yourself. Read the books and recite what you read. As I write this it sounds barbaric.

What is the difference between our school system and a prison camp? Is it any wonder that all of these billionaires dropped out of high school. I didnt even know any of those names other than Richard Branson, Aretha Franklin, The founder of Tumbler, Quentin Tarantino. In addition there were those that dropped out of college like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, to name a few. Maybe the biggest mistake many of us made was to not drop out.

How can you have an original thought when you were not supposed to have one? When you are actually punished for real “thinking”. You are punished for being creative. Heck in todays world if you are daydreaming the next big product for your company and seem to be asleep at the board meeting you will probably get fired.

Assuming you are with me this far, you have a monumental task, an almost insurmountable one. But I promise you the rewards, at the very least, are having a life, as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Flow. A life where the peak moments (that you have rarely had) are what your life is every day. For most of us we can count on one hand those moments of peak flow. Our goal is to merely have more of them occasionally.

I am telling you the least of your goals should be to let go of your shit and live a life without worries and constant chatter and negative self talk. You will have a more pleasant life. The next goal would be to quiet your mind so you can actually listen in a way that I describe as pure listening. Its like going to a show or watching a movie, when your brain actually shuts up.

The result of that will be all of your relationships will take on a glow that they have never had before. Even your closest relationships will get deeper and more profound, enriching and exciting. Finally when your mind is so quiet and you are finding peace and joy in your life and relationships your extremely quiet mind will start doing some real “Thinking”. Actually we all use the word incorrectly. The word “thinking” is a total misnomer. We should correctly use the word creating.

A quiet mind can create. A cluttered mind, overwhelmed with at least 50 to 90,000 thoughts is not capable of creating anything. It merely repeats thoughts it had yesterday 80% of which are negative, and we allow that to pass for thinking. Its not, it is merely repeating BS.

Is that the way you want to live your life? It sounds like prison to me. And I have finally found the keys and I am trying to share them with you, and as best as I can, share the path I took or articulate it in a manner that will help you understand it, and pursue it if you wish.

Whatever path gets you there is great. The goal is to quiet your mind so you can enjoy your life and maybe even create something new for even more enjoyment. It is truly profound when you feel it. It will knock you over like a blast of wind, fresh air and sunshine. It will knock you over and you are going to want more of it

Trust me it only gets better. To quote Wayne Dyer. Its like that underwear that was in the dryer too long and the elastic has expanded. It cant go back to its original narrow shape. Expand your mind, allow it to be creative. Its pure joy. Its not coming from a place of Egoic teaching but rather joyfully sharing. There are signs of that too. When you dont have the urge to share is, when you probably have something worth sharing. When you are doing it for yourself. I am writing this but I do not yet even have any plans for sharing it. I am doing it for me, which is another good sign.

Another sign is when you are so quiet you can listen to your loved ones and resist the urge to share, comment or even affirm.

Isnt your desire to tell someone that you agree with them self referential? What is the purpose of that? To show that you agree with them? Is it wanting them to approve of the fact that you agree with them? Is it wanting them to know you are smart enough to get what they are saying? Why cant you just be like the Buddha and remain silent? That is another sign that you are starting to “get it.” There is literally nothing to say, nothing that needs to be said. Anything you say will merely get in the “way”

I must be in the right place or in the flow because I forgot what I was writing about. I was merely flowing. PS it is 11:30am I have been up for 5 hours. I havent checked my email or anything. That is literally a first for me. I probably havent gone the first 5 hours of a Monday morning without checking my email in at least two decades. Whatever it is can wait a few hours if not a few days.

OK off to work. I hope something I said helps someone at some point in the present or the future.

More on that. I did this in the flow of the general subject matter