Mark O Brien


Stories, Stories Stories

By Mark O’Brien

Believing our own stories.

Where would we be without our stories? In silence perhaps, in boredom?

Now and again I find myself lost in stories, stories about this one or that, what is happening and what isn’t, getting involved in stuff that is none of my business.

It is quite a trap for a writer to not believe all the stories that go around in the mind, as they are generally well thought out and logical(!?)

I have a laugh at myself sometimes, that after nearly 30 years of being ‘on the spiritual path’, of being connected with a master whose message is meditation, of being disidentified with the mind and all its stories, I am still thinking it is real.

And it seems that we all believe what the mind tells us about different things.

I/we tend to hold things in a certain way that fits our view, our mind, our beliefs of life, of relating, of people. That this person does or says this, therefore that’s who this person is.

It seems sometimes that many people have the same stories running, but we forget that they are stories, and feel that because so many think the same, it must be true, real.

And it is not a question of being right or wrong, or even a matter of interest, just which story we choose to believe.

(See The New Biology, for modern biology’s take on how out stories affect our experience, therefore our lives.)

What I am seeing is an addiction to the mind, to thinking, even as it doesn’t serve, as what comes out of the mind mostly doesn’t actually help.

And the funny thing is that our minds are incredible, computers far smarter than the fastest, sexiest bunch of megabytes on the market, and we just waste it, fill up the RAM if you like, with all our nonsense, not leaving any space for it to do what it does best, to make our lives better.

We have so much clag making it all a sticky mess, ideas/concepts that prevent us from seeing clearly, from knowing and living our truth, our purpose for being here.

The mind works much faster than we can think, which generally is about how fast we can speak, and really ought to be left on its own to do its thing.

For sure we need to use it to figure out the things which can be figured out, which generally happens quite quickly, but, certainly in my case at least and I suspect that everyone is in the same situation, mostly we just use our mind to perpetuate  the mind, be busy with the peripherals, to create ongoing entertainment.

Bit boring really.

As we move into the new age, it would be great if we could leave it all behind.

Originally published in Here & Now magazine, Byron Bay 2002

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