Pencil: The Lead Centre/Present: Keeping the Mind Clean
Book 6: The Internal Worship | Chapter 6.5 | 30 June 2021
One topic Janthopoyism has repeatedly revisited throughout this scripture is keeping the brain clean. Whether accessing the Universal Mind or handling the energetic spikes/drops from the previous chapter, the intended approach is to cease activity and avoid conditioned responses. Furthermore, the Skew System's objective is to erase run-of-the-mill naggings, opening a space where the internal can hear the call of the Universe more clearly.
This chapter will be looking at two bonus pursuits to assign even deeper power from your mind to your True Self, granting your Inner Universe greater control.
The most straightforward method of shushing the brain is to sweep out your short-to-intermediate term memory entirely. You do this by taking everything you need to remember from your Internal Universe and placing it directly into the External Universe. This strategy is extra useful once your Skew System is firing high on all cylinders because brilliant ideas will suddenly bombard your mind, and you'll have to record them pronto. These thoughts can be written on a piece of paper, punched into your nearest digital device, or spoken into a voice note; anything as long as you can document the contemplations immediately and have access to them whenever. This act alone will calm your brain immensely. It will recognise that this specific data has been taken care of, and it no longer needs to juggle that list of stuff to recall. The only thing it needs to remember now is to check the list!
And check the list, you shall! We recommend that you have a fixed time slot where you read your list over, building a habit until this part of the process is not reliant on memory either. If you stick to this daily procedure, it shouldn't take 10 minutes to transfer whatever's on your list to more convenient places. Draw up some calendar markings, add articles to your shopping list, or simply complete any brief tasks you can manage at that moment.
As excessive as this sounds, we implore you to throw as much of your mind out from your skull as possible, preferably all of the contents, storing the entire hard drive externally. Book an afternoon off to scribble out literally everything you have to do today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life. Anything that plonks in your head; every dream, every idea, every responsibility, every person to speak to; everything should be accounted for. From there, it's as painless as gathering harmonious thoughts into suitable documents. Examples may include a list for your chores, a list for your groceries, a list of topics you'd like to research, a list of travel essentials, a list of movies you'd like to see, a list of eventual creative projects, a list for each Skew, a list of lists to make... there can never be too many. These individually distributed records will remain out of sight and out of mind until you think of a new entry to incorporate or when it comes time to execute that relative list.
By dumping these cerebral notions away from the brain, your biological CPU has more resources to run at healthy speeds. Additionally, your Gatekeeper will acknowledge which areas are gaining the most momentum and automatically seek avenues in your reality to receive corresponding ideas to jot down. And on it goes, the Universal Mind gifting you with a thought and you flushing it out, maintaining clear mental tubes while collecting every blessed idea in its designated place, ready to view in one go when the occasion calls for it. You'll never forget nor need to remember anything again!
Sometimes we are not in a position to record something, like when engaged in conversation or driving or experiencing the ever-common shower epiphany. Here is where reminders kick in. Set the alarm on your phone for several minutes. Fling a non-fragile object to the foot of the door so that you cannot open it without a mental prod. I wear a ring on my right thumb for this exact circumstance. When I realise it's on my left thumb, it means I'm supposed to remember a thing. You can also develop a clever rhyme or acronym to lock the thought into its spot. That said, all of these techniques are unreliable, and if you leave it for too long, you may forget why you initiated the alert in the first place. I still have silly rhymes in my brain, of which I can't recall the purpose. Hence it's best to get the idea down in human words as quickly as they come.
Speaking of reminders, here's an important one: "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything". Thank you, Mark Twain, for your endless stream of gold. As we discussed earlier, mistruths are a criminal sin against your mind. You are forcing a memory to save twice, the actual occurrence and the one you've distorted. This double-save clogs up your mental system, interrupts the flow of effortless living, and can cause big trouble for your future Relationship Skew. If you are prone to this behaviour, evaluate why you insist on performing actions you need to hide? And who are you hiding stuff from anyway? There's a more significant dilemma there.
The second method in keeping the brain clean is to disassociate from your mind and settle into one's True Self: the energy within. This meditative technique is trickier but endlessly valuable, especially when dealing with an abrupt emotional spike/drop.
To find this place, begin by feeling the life in your fingers and toes. Once you register that tingly sensation, note how you can perceive it in all areas of your functioning body, usually radiating a few inches beyond your skin. Your personal electricity outlines your whole frame, buzzing your cells, enabling them to heal and progress forward. Now notice that your noisy thoughts are limited to only one location: your head. You are not thinking in your kneecaps or armpits even if that same electricity is there, right? The invisible energy is awake, an electron vibration within your every atom, while your mental mechanics whirr solely within your cranium. This disparity is enough to create a separation between the two Yous: the Spirit-You (which is the Core Observer You), and the Mind-You (where the Spirit-You is simply powering the brain). The very fact that you can survey your thoughts implies the existence of an underlying observer that operates outside your thoughts alone.
Slip down into the Spirit-You by babysitting the mind with love or even apathy. View the brain as what it is: a lump of wet meat. Identifying as the mind makes as much sense as identifying as your lungs, spleen, or bladder. Each is merely a group of tissues with a job to perform when your electricity revs it up. The brain is but a fat organ that fires neurons as per its role in keeping the body alive. Treat the splutter of runaway mental clamour as nothing but a hyperactive radio. Do not try to stop nor influence the thoughts; listen to them. Listen out for what your next thought will be. Listen as the thoughts run laps in the distance. Become the observer.
If you accomplish this correctly, a curious result will occur. The mind will shut up its chatter, and your brain will fall completely silent, perhaps for the first time in your life. Of course, this organ will produce another thought soon enough, and you'll lose grip, shooting away on that trail. This natural function is to be expected. But once you click that it has happened, allow the thought to blast off without chasing it, opting to settle down into a place of non-judgmental observation instead. Decipher which part of your neuro-tissue fired that thought. Even if you imagine it, the assumption alone degrades the thought into a humbler synapses spark. It's as absurdly temporary as the hair you shed. Gently return yourself to the spirit seat and enjoy the show again.
We can only achieve this in a present state of mind. Do whatever you can to realign your focus into this time condition. We hate to repeat such typical advice but fixating on the breath is an effortlessly accessible route. Placing attention on any of your senses works too, be it listening to nature's ambience, noting the pressure of gravity, tasting the inside of your mouth, or staring at a leaf for eternity. These exercises lock the neurological buzz out of the Now. Here is Janthopoyism's preferred approach to mindfulness.
"The moment you realise you are not present, you are present. Whenever you are able to observe your mind, you are no longer trapped in it." — Eckhart Tolle
Whether used as a meditation or a system of reset during spikey decisions, we recommend practising this process every day, even if only for a few minutes. Regular awareness will lubricate the appropriate brain paths until the handover of observation becomes an automated response, and you can quieten the internal monologue whenever you catch its conditioning shouting louder than your True Path.
From this deeper perspective of supervision, you can soften undesirable thought intrusions with swift ease. Pay attention to the brain with compassion, recognising that this crazy dude is trying its hardest to serve you even if its procedures are wildly irrational. Once you can execute this ninja manoeuvre properly, the mind will become self-aware, and its blabber will calm down, that unwelcome thought dissolving with it. And then lift the needle. Select the groove you like. Play a chosen stream instead.
As the above example suggests, there is a great strength to be found within your Meaning of Life. Developing a healthy obsession with something that progresses your path can perpetually operate as that go-to groove. You can build a default stream of thought—a happy train you love to think about whenever you need a change of mental scenery. And if it's not that simple for you, then simplify it until it is.
Another analogy that works is to look upon the brain as if a disorderly puppy. Treat it right, and it will be a blessing to your life. But if you neglect it or feed it bad food, it will start barking loudly for attention. You can attempt to lock it up, you can yap back, or you can even hit it, but this will only encourage the demand for further mind resources. However, as soon as you register that it's just a barking pup, it loses its power. If anything, it transforms into an ally, for its commotion highlights a problem, one you can keep an eye on while bouncing around solutions, seeking the happiest answer. Then you can pat the brain on its head and say "good doggo!" before moving along.
With these distances created, you will gradually identify yourself less with your mind and more with your spirit. The brain is not you. It's a trainable web of compartmentalised nerve cells within the greater You, very comparable to a dog. And so, when you act strangely, do not blame yourself nor feel ashamed for your mistakes but take an interest in them. This behaviour was not who you really are; it was the behaviour of your habituated dog, who blatantly requires extra training. Learn and adjust. If you only make every error once, you will rise faster than anyone in history.
And through disconnection of selves and dampening of your thoughts, you can move outwards to the people around you. Monitor those who are not yet aware of their high-strung brain-dogs, led by their minds as if a reversed leash. Their brains may even bark at your brain, bent on provoking a reaction. Naturally, your dog will spike and want to bark back. But do not ever bark back. Do not give your dog control like that. Instead, observe with appreciation the divine exchange between two sentient miracles of nature, then let it be without judgement but with a fascination for this impressive point of evolution. Then perhaps muse with wonderment as to where we might be headed next.