The problem is that we were never taught about our Mind in our school and colleges.

How many of you know about the difference between a Mind and Brain? What is their function? How we think? How are our perception and perspective created? How our brain is wired for survival? What is ego and how it runs our life? What is psychology behind our every actions?

90% of the problems can be solved by just understanding the working of your mind ~ Joseph Nguyen.

I was a guy who suffered anxiety throughout his childhood. It was due to the fear of death, fear of losing parents and many others which were somehow related to these two major fears.

There were no one to help me on those phases of my life. I was hell depressed about it. I never talked about it to my parents, because they would not understand what this anxiety means.

I also came to know about it, after my mid school graduation when I got a phone. That was the time when I dig deep down the rabbit hole to understand the root cause of anxiety and how people used to overcome it.

That was my golden period where I got a chance to overcome the anxiety on my own. I watched lots of YouTube videos and read different articles from the internet. I was not satisfied with them because every one of them were providing the temporary solutions. I also went to doctor and took medicines but nothing works for me.

Later, after graduating from my higher secondary, I noticed that, now it had less impact on me, because of the right understanding that I had developed over the period of 2 years’ time.

That is why, I emphasize you all to learn about your mind and how it operates in the real world. It is not the fault of your mind, because it is designed to protect you. So, whatever it receives as unwanted for your survival, it took it as a danger, which ultimately led you to think and make you ready for fight or flight mode.

HOW ARE THOUGHT AND THINKING PLAYS A MAJOR ROLE IN OUR LIFE?

It is scientifically proved that over 70,000 thoughts pop up daily into our mind.

What are thoughts? How are these generated? Why do we need thought? What happen if we reached a no thought state? Is that possible? How thought and thinking are related to each other?

Basically, a thought can be compared with the notification in the phone. It is random, we cannot find out the source until you are aware of it. There are hundreds of notifications per day in your phone regardless of the source.

Same in the case of our mind, there are thousands of thoughts appears regardless of the source. When you analyze it then you can somehow predict the source of it.

The Mind is the bundle of thoughts, emotions, ideas, and memories, it is the abstract part of the brain. Brain is the physical organ that controls every other part of the body like thinking, feeling, moving and everything that you do on daily basis.

Brain is the hardware and the mind is the software part of the super computer that is in your head.

The thoughts in your mind can never disturb you until it turns into thinking. These thoughts are generally appeared in two ways-

-        Active thought: - The thoughts that pop up into your mind due to the current events like seeing, touching, eating, reading and many others present moment activities.

-        Passive thought: - The thoughts that pop up into your mind due to the seed that has been planted into your subconscious mind, like thought related to fear, memory of the person, and grief. You are unaware of these thoughts and the source.

“The processing of the thought into our brain is called Thinking.”

Thoughts in its very nature is stable, it cannot affect you. It is the processing of these thoughts that turns out into thinking which is the root cause of everything in our life. The thinking further triggers the emotions in our body which causes the body to act, because these emotions are the pack of energy. Emotion is energy in motion. You cannot store it into your body or else it will express out itself through frustration, anxiety, and anger.

You should have heard it many times that the way you think, you become. “The repetition of the thinking into your mind become the code, that programs you, to act in that way.” The same feeling is triggered which helps the subconscious to make it into a habit.

Thinking triggers the emotions in our body and these emotions helps us to act in a certain way. You may be sad or happy based upon the quality of your emotions and the quality of the emotions depend upon the quality of your thinking.

Let me ask one of the questions – what is your natural state or the default mode? Happy or sad? The life without thinking? When was that period? Have you ever seen a child or a new born baby? Are they happy or sad?

They are happy right, when they are feeded at the right time. It means our natural state or the default state is happiness. Then what causes unhappiness in our life? Thinking causes unhappiness in our life. Do you see a dog or any animal in depression or unhappy when their basic needs are fulfilled like food, water, and shelter. A big No right.

If we stop thinking, then we will be in our default state. Is it possible to not think? No, it’s not possible because thinking is necessary to take decision in life. Thinking can only dissolve with the right understanding.

When you understand that your default mode is happiness. The moment thought arises in your mind, you will let it go. At first it is hard to do, but eventually with practice and right understanding you can achieve a no thought state. No thought state is non thinking state and both states take you to the present moment. Where there is no concept of past and future.

We humans derive the meaning from the past or future. This all is due to mind seeking pleasure and to boost ego. The ego controls your identity which is the driver of this vehicle called body. You are not what you think, you are just the projection of your mind.

So, whenever you think, immediately question yourself and find out the root cause of your thinking whether it is based upon reality or just an illusion.

Sometimes I think about my future and become happy or sad, it depends upon my dominant thought. But soon I find that most of the time my thinking was out of an illusion.

This understanding helps me to overcome through my worst phase of life. I guarantee, it will help you too. Just understand and practice it into your daily life.

6 LEVELS OF AWARNESS

1)     IGNORANCE – At first you are unaware of the problem. You ignore it. Your mind does not want to come out of the comfort zone. At this stage you are okay, living directionless, without any goals and vision in life.

We know that the education that we are getting is not going to help us in living a good and happy life, but still, we are studying.

 2)     AWAKENING – The second level is awakening, where you are aware of the problem because of that inner calling to change yourself. Maybe you had been introduced to some great people in life, maybe you had a financial problem or maybe you have a burning problem in your life.

 3)     CURIOSITY AND EXPLORATION – When you become aware of the problem, you want a solution to it. Your mind now has a direction to move towards. It acts like a magnet, as it will attract every possible solution to your problem. This helps you to become curious. You will explore to more small problems related to that one big problem. You will study different books, watch videos, and take help from the mentors. Your level of knowledge expands as you try to find the solution for it.

 4)     ACCEPTANCE AND SELF-DISCOVERY – Sometimes you may not find out the answer for your problem, then just accept the fact. Our mind tries to trick us by showing the ways to indulge in the short-term pleasures, do not fall for that trap. When you stop resisting the reality, then new ideas flow into your mind. You start discovering the new ways to solve a problem. You understand what you are interested in and how to operate wisely.

 5)     MINDFUL LIVING – This level of awareness demands the right and complete understanding of mind. Where you know deeply that you are not who you think, it is only the projection of your mind, playing different characters to survive the identity.

 You are different in front of parents, friends, teachers, and society. It is because your mind is trying to protect you by protecting your identity.

 6)     GROWTH – Growth shows that you have overcome the different sets of problem in your life. The experience that you have gained along the journey comes from the lessons that life teaches you. You become highly aware of your thoughts, action and surrounding. You are at peace.

“Control your mind and you will be a miserable person.”

Do not try to control your mind. I have seen many people doing it so and failing every time. This is one of the biggest traps that we are in. Okay let us understand its analogy: -

When you try to control your mind, it is like putting a lion in the cage. The lion will never be happy in the cage. But still, he must stay there because someone else is controlling him. Remember by any means, if he got a chance to come out of it, then he will be more dangerous than before.

So, you try to control yourself by restricting your mind to not to do it. But eventually you fail because you were not working upon the root cause of it. What is the root cause of it? It is the lack of understanding of your mind. Not going deep to the cause of it, trying to solve it on the surface level. When you understand the exact scenario of the mind, then you can proceed further that is to be aware.

Here are the steps that I follow to get rid of any negative emotions or thought: -

-        Let the thought come in and go out.

-        You just need to observe your mind and note down its reaction.

-        Do not try to change or interfere it, let it be there.

-        See how your ego get boost, tries to defend you, and protect your identity.

-        Feel it with all your heart, accept the pain and pleasure both.

-        Developed your understanding about the dynamics of your thoughts.

-        Be present on the moment, find the source of that thought.

-        Focus bringing your attention completely to your thought.

-        Do not judge it, believe that it is just the projection of your mind.

-        The thought will dissolve with your understanding of it.

-        At the end you will find, it is not affecting you anymore.

The thought and emotions are never negative, it is on us how we perceive it. The perception that we form is out of the information that is already in our mind. The perspective is form out of the belief and personal opinions you hold.

You are not what you think!

Let me prove you by a simple statement – “I want to buy this for myself”.

When you deconstruct the phrase there is ‘I’ and ‘my-self.’ Who is this ‘I’ here and who is this ‘Self’?

Are there two entities in you?

It means You are something else. You are just playing a character that is your ‘self’ in this world. So, whatever you think about yourself is just the projection of your mind.

You act different in front of different people, playing different character to fit into this environment.

When you understand this concept then you can detach yourself from the self which makes you feel very light. You enter the present moment, there is no past and future. You just realized the higher version of you.

I do not know what happen at an enlightened state, but I am sure that the understanding of your-self and the mind is the beginning of it. I am only 22 years old but I have a very deep sense of what is our mind and who we are. This all happen due to my curious and questioning mind. I can talk about it all day, but I must sum up this letter till here.

I hope you have read my previous newsletter, subscribe to it. This is how we exchange information and learn from each other.

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM!

Signing off,

Gaurav