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Dear Ben,

It’s good that you have been following the teachings of master Eckhart Tolle. Things are going to be simple for you to follow.

Take a break for yourself from all of the spiritual healing techniques and self-help books.
I’ve done and gone through them so you need not do the homework. What I am going to suggest you are also some of the spiritual healing techniques but only the ones that are necessary for you and something that will work.

Yes, understanding the concepts theoretically is far much different from experiencing it experientially but is possible through doing them practically. I am going to suggest you something from Eckhart’s teachings of “The Power of Now” and “A new earth: Awakening to your life purpose”. But these are going to be practical exercises and will be required to be done regularly and diligently. You need not have to do anything else for the overactive mind.

The root cause of all pain and suffering caused is due to an overactive mind. I will go ahead even further and call it a hyper active mind.

“…over analytical and active mind, overwhelming of thinking and confusion about everything…”
All of these that you are experiencing are nothing but “hyper mind activity” and not really happening in reality, and I’m sure you are already aware of this.

When your mind won’t let you alone, feel the inner energy of your entire body.

All you have to do is get out of your head and bring your attention back to the awareness of your inner body.

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Feel Your Inner Body:

If you are not familiar with “inner body” awareness, close your eyes for a moment and find out if there is life inside your hands. Don’t ask your mind…go to the hands directly. By this it means to become aware of the subtle feeling of aliveness inside them. Raise your hand and with your eyes closed try to find where your lifted hand is. It is there. You just have to go there with your attention to notice it with your eyes closed. You may get a slight tingling sensation at first, then a feeling of energy or aliveness. If you hold your attention in your hands for a while, the sense of aliveness will intensify…

Then go to your feet, keep your attention there for a minute or so, and begin to feel your hands and feet at the same time. Then incorporate other parts of the body–legs, arms, abdomen, chest, and so on–go into that feeling until you are aware of the inner body as a global sense of aliveness. Feel the entire inner body as one single energy field.

Practice this exercise to get a feel for the energy in your inner body. When you know and recognize that feeling, you can call upon it anytime you want to feel peaceful and happy. If you are yet unable to feel the entire body at once then choosing any one part of the body will work equally. For me, the chest or the heart area is where I can feel it most easily as it is more intense there. If the feeling for you is more intense in one particular area of your body then you can focus more there.

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Daily morning and night routine: 

When you are unoccupied for a few minutes, and especially last thing at night before falling asleep and first thing in the morning before getting up, “flood” your body with consciousness (energy field inside the body).

Close your eyes.

Lie flat on your back.

Choose different parts of your body to focus your attention on briefly at first: hands, feet, arms, legs, abdomen, chest, head, and so on. Feel the life energy inside those parts as intensely as you can.

Stay with each part for fifteen seconds or so. Then let your attention run through the body like a wave a few times, from feet to head and back again.

This need only take a minute or so. After that, feel the inner body in its totality, as a single field of energy. Hold that feeling for a few minutes.

Be intensely present during that time, present in every cell of your body. Don’t be concerned if the mind occasionally succeeds in drawing your attention out of the body and you lose yourself in some thought. As soon as you notice that this has happened, just return your attention to the inner body.
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All throughout your day:

The morning and the nightly daily routine are itself going to be highly beneficial for you to carry on with your day without much of the “troubling” mind.

But use your day-to-day activities itself as a form of spiritual practice in bringing peace to your situation.

Use the mindfulness practice in all that you do.

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way:
on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

This is not going to be difficult work. Also, I am not referring to the mindfulness meditation. In fact I suggest you won’t even need meditation. Use your daily life itself as a spiritual practice. Practice mindfulness in all of your day to day activities. To experience life fully and enjoy fully you will need to live in the moment.

1. Think of a to-do on your list. Something that’s tedious or seems trivial is ideal . . . like washing your hands or walking the dog. It could be something you usually do unconsciously, just going through the motions to get it over with . . . like packing your kids’ lunches or mowing the lawn.
2. Decide to do it fully. Doing something fully means giving it your full attention and doing it on purpose. By never doing anything unwillingly, you become internally aligned with the external activity instead of there being a conflict and not allowing the mind to wander.
3. Engage all your senses. Smell the grass you’re cutting, feel the wind blow against you as you go, see the trees around you, listen to the lawnmower.

It may not feel natural or make sense at first. But it will become second nature. And the more you bring those present moments into your life, the more our old conditioning (our tendency to worry, to become anxious, to feel depressed, or to engage in unhealthy behaviors) is released.

Practicing present moment awareness with simple items on your to-do list or small challenges in your everyday life retrains your mind and better prepares you to deal with problems of any size and nature. So eventually you can transcend them with ease.

Mastering the art of breaking down life into the present moment is just one important step in raising your level of consciousness to transcend any struggle that arises in your life.

This can even be done with an as simple activity as walking.

Try walking for a while as if your feet is kissing the ground.

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Feeling your inner body and mindfulness will cut the link with any mind activity (the root cause of all problems), making you present, giving you a sense of peace, happiness and joy again. With the help of mindfulness and inner body awareness you will be able to live a happy joyful life again and that too inspite of any other challenges it throws. How beautiful that would be like?

Follow all of the routines mentioned above and see how it feels without attaching your mind to any results. The mind will ask “Is that even working?” or “I am unable to feel anything”. This will mean that the mind has taken over again. Return back to the energy of your inner body. It is always there. You will begin to feel happy, peaceful and joyful again.

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You also asked – “…..What I do next to the purpose of the universe”

Take a look at the below videos. You can listen and re-listen to these, but just these. Remember you are not going to touch any other spiritual practice or self-help books 🙂 . Do not allow the “monkey mind” to jump from one video to another, from one book to another, from one spiritual article to another. Because all you ever need is in this post.

(www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AoiWPCgjXg)

(www.youtube.com/watch?v=yltxmm90N5g)

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All of the above practices are going to take care of all the issues mentioned on your post.

But I will also suggest you something to do additionally and alongside.

It is called the ‘The Wayne Cook Posture” from Donna Eden’s Energy Healing Techniques.

It is used for brain fogginess, clouded mind, not having enough clarity in thoughts.

(www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPT19Im8vnU)

(www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhllemDYXo0)

(www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCp-O995IDk)

This is a simple technique but not a substitute for Presence or mindfulness. In fact you can combine it in a way by doing the Wayne Cook Posture to unscramble the energies in your body and mind making you ready to practice Presence and Mindfulness all throughout your day including the daily morning and nightly routine.

Best Regards,

VJ

• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by VJ.

My own experience of a over active mind started to change when I accepted that I have an active mind and that I like contemplating new ideas and such.

One of the problem is that I tended to focus on the forest, all the questions at once instead of one tree at a time. So, I hit allot of tress. Another issue was growing up everyone would tell me me “I think to much” so felt undeserved shame about accepting my authentic nature and so struggled with sense of self not being acceptable

For the first problem I found it helpful to let go of questions such as meaning and purpose. Not that I still don’t ponder such questions but that I don’t worry about or attach myself to the answers or lack of answers. For the second issue – that is a work in progress.

I found your statement – “I struggle with happiness, peace of mind and tranquility” interesting. As long as you struggle with happiness and peace of mind it is not possible to have peace of mind or happiness and so you defeat yourself. The answer of course is to stop struggling. I know easier said then done (we work for that which no work is required) however when you do emerge from the struggle, (and you will) it will be exactly what you will have done.

Happiness isn’t something we create its something we notice and allow ourselves to experience.  When you are struggling remind yourself that it is the struggle and not anything that is actually happening to you that is preventing the experience of happiness. You can be happy even in a storm. I suspect a part of us likes to struggle and even be unhappy. Can we be happy about being unhappy… I think so… if we don’t struggle.

I also think you can also have peace of mind when your mind is full of thoughts. Why not? Especially if if thinking is part of your nature.  Such a perspective creates the space where you can learn to step back and select the thoughts (trees) you wish to focus on and in this way no longer become overwhelmed. It is the struggle more then anything thing happening that is creating the confusion. Step back and notice that you have always dealt with the stuff that has come your way. When things didn’t work out as hope for and those that did, you learned from. You will continue to deal with the stuff that comes your way. You can act with intention working towards goals and wondering about the outcome without struggling with a imagined future that may or may not be. The mind can rest even in action.

Practice taking a step back from your thoughts when you notice them overwhelming. In those times, you can’t, find a safe place and jump in. If you do you will find yourself coming out of those experiences much sooner and occurring less frequently. Its like getting caught in a rip tide, the more your struggle the longer you will stay submerged and the further away the water will carry you. If you relax and maybe even enjoy the ride, the water will spit you out.

Dear ben:

You are welcome. In your recent post you wrote: “I don’t want complex analysis, I just want internal change”.

Your request for simplicity, perhaps, not complexity, I am returning to my suggestion from my previous post to you, that you share next from the emotional part of you: imagine that you are a child and type away, using simple words and sentences a child will use. I will try this exercise myself, paraphrasing your recent post to what I imagine a child would share, more or less:

My dad is not nice to my mum. He doesn’t even try! She is so sad and it makes me so sad. I told her: mum! Dad is not nice to you! And that made her even more sad. It made me even more sad than sad. I wish I didn’t tell her. I did a bad thing, I made my mum even more sad.

I am so angry at my dad! I am also angry at myself. I want to fix it. I want to make dad be nice to mum. I want to make mum happy. I can’t. I am weak and not good enough.

I feel bad. I am scared. I am tired. So tired.

I am done with the exercise. How did I do and would you like to do your own? If you post again, referring to my post here, I will reply again.

anita

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