Hi Brendan Lea,
I hope you are doing well.
I viewed your videos on YouTube about being calm and on anxiety and I realized that I have an assumption about mind control and the nature of self.
The assumption is that I can’t control my mind because I am who I am(a self). I found that the realisation of this assumption is both enlightening and transformative, what’s your view on this?
Tsepiso,
Thanks for writing in! I just dropped this week's youtube video addressing your topic. You can see it here: https://youtu.be/8jMsv7oETJ8
Brendan
Brendan, this is to answer your questions(This will keep you stuck Youtube video) and tell you more about my discoveries.
Self is the assumption that I think I am a certain and specific way, etched in stone. The assumption of self shows up in my experience, in my thoughts and how I feel.
The realization of the assumption of self has led me to experiencing openess. What I experience as openess is that my feeling-aware cannot only change but I have experienced my feeling-awareness being free from attachment to any certain and specific feeling. This was my first experience of openess which happened recently, now I am able to detect when I am not open because I have a contrast which makes it easy to progress unlike before when I relied only on Peter's insights.
During this experience my mind was not quite but it didn’t affect how I felt because I still felt open. When I say I felt I don't mean I felt anything in particular, it was just feeling.
After that I realized that my memories are conceptual beliefs and whatever I believe and never experienced is a concept. These includes memories of my interactions with others and intimate relationships.
After this realization my mind is beginning to slow down and becoming quite, I will let you know when it has completely stopped which I know is possible because I don't have racing thoughts like I did before which messed with my focus. With the mind slowing down I can easily change it and transform "myself" and it has led to me being open which is the side effect of enlightment.
What led to these realizations is the practice of being aware of my feelings almost all the time and trying over and over again to experience the insights in the book of not-knowing.
I am a 29 years old male from South Africa, you can call me Duncan which is my second name.
Regards
Tsepiso Duncan Vilakazi