The realization of 'I' am not the mind

I have just recently truly understood the correct meaning of the phrase, "I" am not this mind.

At an early age I realized that "I" am not this body. Which is a significant spiritual milestone. But I used to believe that by saying, I am not this body and I am not this mind, by thinking about it. But recently a lot of my sources started telling me you can't use the mind to say that you are not it. Which made sense.

Here is where the dilemma started, If I can't think it then how can I be free of it, or experience the "I" am not this mind. Many years I have been trying to find an answer for this. I started falling into incorrect pathways and was starting to get lost. Many thoughts were coming to my head, if I am not this mind then none of it matters. If I have to at the end merge with the source then what's the point of it all.

Then I heard of a phrase that really shook me up heavily, "Concentrate on to whom the thought comes to?"
I thought well the thought comes to the mind, so then I should isolate that and concentrate on what is left. But after I isolated this, I was staring into nothingness, an absolute void. I just couldn't understand this, nor could I follow through with this, as I couldn't feel anything there.

Until about a day or too ago, while having a discussion with one of my sources I understood that I was thinking about it inversely. The phrase "Concentrate on, to whom the thought comes to?" actually, the thought comes to the "I". And then the thought manifests into the mind where it turns to the reality we see here.

So now my question is, Is this whole world just this mind and its manifestation of its thoughts or a collective mind and all of their manifestations combined.

Secondly my other question is, To truly experience freedom from the mind, I know that I must stop manifesting the thoughts and no longer let them affect me or process them in anyway, and I must let them pass. But how do I completely let go. Step away from having any need for this mind.

One thing I have experienced in the past was with Meditation, that I was able to achieve pure thoughtless state and I was able to cross over to the knowledge state, but eventually needed to come back, which was a temporary state.

For me, I feel that I am really close to figuring it out, but haven't yet truly experienced it or applied the knowledge I have learnt. Or if I am missing just a single piece somewhere which will get me on the other side.

At a certain point, the mind isn't very useful without a body to convey its intents.

To truly experience freedom from the mind, I know that I must stop manifesting the thoughts and no longer let them affect me or process them in anyway

I recall a fairly amusing expression that goes, keep an open mind but not so open your brain falls out on the floor.

a reply to: sid1314

Most of what you think you are, in your mind, is either an error, a construct, or a neurosis. then it bundles up to form a schizophrenic convulsion, that is the body and mind of a modern human being.


If one wants, they can experiment themselves by eating a good amount of fresh lions mane mushrooms incorporated to your normal food, in a week or two, it will start fixing some of these problems,its pretty interesting to have them revealed.

Feed your head.

But how do I completely let go. Step away from having any need for this mind.

Death? But in all seriousness, I don't think its possible to live a human life without using one's mind.

One thing I have experienced in the past was with Meditation, that I was able to achieve pure thoughtless state and I was able to cross over to the knowledge state, but eventually needed to come back, which was a temporary state.

Congratulations and achieving that level of meditation. If you feel like you are close you may be. I read that the key is not to specifically seek it out. Much like how Buddha found enlightenment after ceasing to seek.

You might want to try to ask www.reddit.com... as they have some people who have knowledge in spiritual awakenings. Or other similair reddit forums. I think this website is a bit small, so you may not recieve the response you're looking for.

I would not know where to look, but you may want to find a guru/spiritual teacher who is enlightend (or close to it).

Best of luck to you and your spiritual journey.

a reply to: NeonPyramid

Thank you for your response.

Death is not the answer, I realized that a long long time ago, it just makes you more entangled with this construct, and is counter intuitive to the whole concept of freedom from it all.

So no, death is not the answer.

Yes the answer is to be. its to simple be.
So the knowledge state showed me that, but I truly understood it a couple of days back.
Usually there are 3 states to knowing something
1. The Known (Object)
2. The Knower (Subject)
3. The Knowing (Action of Knowing)

But infact there is a forth one
4. The Knowledge

In this forth state you don't really need the first 3, they become invalid. The known is everything so there is no need to ask, the knower can't be, as you are knowledge at that point, and as you might have guessed it there is no need for the action as the answer is already you i.e. Knowledge.
(English is a funny language, you can't really say what you want to say but try to say it with the limited words you have.)

Yes I will check out the Reddit forums as well, thank you for that link. Was not aware of that one.

a reply to: TzarChasm

The mind cannot sustain without the body, thus what they say is true, without the mind the body can't exist, neither the other way around, the mind can't sustain without a body.

But what happens when you die, to this body, do you perish entirely, or what happens to the mind when you die.

If the mind would remain dormant after death, then why is it not possible to revive a dead person if you reanimate his/her body. (Don't want to go to the realm of zombies, but this is the truth). The "you" leaves thus making the mind and the body completely disabled.

The "I" that I mention here is the true self, the watcher, the observer. Take an example of a game, Think about the character in the game, that is your body, the person playing the game is your mind, and the person viewing the experience through a Youtube Video is the true self. You are not in control of this body and mind, you are just observing this experience.

a reply to: XipeTotex

Actually I have experienced a lot of realizations uptil now and they are not just an error or a construct of the mind. They are true.

Its hard to believe in some of the ideology of these realizations, but when you experience them you feel right, you feel like yeah that makes sense.

Everyone has their own path and no one can tell them which path to take to realize the same thing, One must experience it or learn it in their own way.

So I wish you best of luck on your path, and do share your spiritual questions here, I would be happy to help you if you need anything.

a reply to: sid1314

I understand you completely and the position you're in. It reminds me of the movie "The Sphere" (actually just flashed in front of my eyes, some scene, while I was writing this). I don't know if you've seen it. Great movie. The book is probably much better but I'm not much of the reader. 😂
Anyway, it seems to me that you are approaching the issue from intellectual perspective. Aka, mind is playing games with itself. The mind always likes to analyze things, it wants "understand" things. But how can it understand something that is greater than it? It's futile. But you understood correctly that we are not the mind. Although "understand" is not the correct word. You realized it. Realization is something that is much greater than understanding if you know what I mean. It's next level.
So if we are not the mind what is the mind? And why it wants to convince us that it is our essence?
Actually "a mind" or "the mind" is parasitic entity that feed on our true being. It took me lot of time and effort to come to that realization and I'm too lazy to explain it. Instead, I will give you excerpt from Castaneda's final book:"The Active Side of Infinity", where he beautifuly explains the origin and nature of the mind:

In his book The Active Side of Infinity, Carlos Castaneda discusses the "Flyers"... they are the single greatest barrier to the spiritual freedom of the Human race.

Don Juan said, “This is the appropriate time of day for doing what I am asking you to do. It takes a moment to engage the necessary attention to do it. Don’t stop until you catch that fleeting black shadow.”

I did see some strange fleeting black shadow projected on the foliage of the trees. It was either a shadow going back and forth or various fleeting shadows moving side-to-side or straight up in the air. They looked like fat black fish to me, enormous fish. It was as if gigantic swordfish were flying in the air. I was engrossed in the sight. Then, finally, it scared me. It became to dark to see the foliage, yet I could still see the fleeting black shadows.

“What is it, don Juan?” I asked.

“Long ago, [the native sorcerer/shamans of Mexico] discovered that we have a companion for life,” he said, as clearly as he could. “We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos, and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The predator is our lord and master. It has rendered us docile; helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we don’t do so.”

It was very dark around us, and that seemed to curtail any expression on my part. If it had been daylight, I would have laughed my head off. In the dark, I felt quite inhibited.

“It’s pitch black around us,” don Juan said, “but if you look out of the corner of your eye, you will still see fleeting shadows jumping all around you.”

He was right. I could still see them. Their movement made me dizzy. Don Juan turned on the light, and that seemed to dissipate everything. Don Juan said, “You have arrived, by your effort alone, to what the shamans of ancient Mexico called the topic of topics. I have been beating around the bush all this time, insinuating to you that something is holding us prisoner. Indeed we are held prisoner! This was an energetic fact for the sorcerers of ancient Mexico.”

Why has this predator taken over in the fashion that you’re describing, don Juan?” I asked. “There must be a logical explanation.”

“There is an explanation,” don Juan replied, “which is the simplest explanation in the world. They took over because we are food for them, and they squeeze us mercilessly because we are their sustenance. Just as we rear chickens in chicken coops, gallineros, the predators rear us in human coops, humaneros. Therefore, their food is always available to them.”

I felt that my head was shaking violently from side to side. I could not express my profound sense of unease and discontentment, but my body moved to bring it to the surface. I shook from head to toe without any volition on my part. I heard myself saying, “No, no, no, no. This is absurd, don Juan. What you’re saying is something monstrous. It simply can’t be true, for sorcerers, or for average men, or for anyone.”

“Why not?” don Juan asked calmly. “Why not? Because it infuriates you?”

“Yes, it infuriates me,” I retorted. “Those claims are monstrous!”

“Well,” he said, “you haven’t heard all the claims yet. Wait a bit longer and see how you feel. “I’m going to subject you to a blitz. That is, I’m going to subject your mind to tremendous onslaughts; and you cannot get up and leave because you’re caught. Not because I’m holding you prisoner, but because something in you will prevent you from leaving while another part of you is going to go truthfully berserk. So brace yourself!”

There was something in me which I felt was a ‘glutton for punishment’. He was right. I wouldn’t have left the house for the world; and yet I didn’t like one bit the inanities he was spouting. Don Juan said, “I want to appeal to your analytical mind. Think for a moment, and tell me how you would explain the contradiction between the intelligence of man the engineer, and the stupidity of his systems of beliefs; or the stupidity of his contradictory behavior. Sorcerers believe that the predators have given us our systems of beliefs; our ideas of good and evil; our social mores. The predators are the ones who set up our hopes and expectations, and dreams of success or failure. They have given us covetousness, greed, and cowardice. It is the predators who make us complacent, routinary, and egomaniacal.”

“But how can they do this, don Juan?” I asked, somehow angered further by what he was saying. “Do they whisper all that in our ears while we are asleep?”

“No, they don’t do it that way. That’s idiotic!” don Juan said, smiling. “They are infinitely more efficient and organized than that. “In order to keep us obedient, meek and weak, the predators engaged themselves in a stupendous maneuver- stupendous, of course, from the point of view of a fighting strategist; a horrendous maneuver from the point of view of those who suffer it. They gave us their mind! Do you hear me? The predators give us their mind which becomes our mind. The predators’ mind is baroque, contradictory, morose, and filled with the fear of being discovered any minute now.

“I know that even though you have never suffered hunger,” he went on, “you have food anxiety which is none other than the anxiety of the predator who fears that any moment now its maneuver is going to be uncovered, and its food is going to be denied. Through the mind, which after all is their mind, the predators inject into the lives of human beings whatever is convenient for them. The predators ensure in this manner a degree of security to act as a buffer against their fear.”

“It’s not that I can’t accept all this at face value, don Juan,” I said. “I could, but there’s something so odious about it that it actually repels me. It forces me to take a contradictory stand. “If it’s true that they eat us, how do they do it?”

Don Juan had a broad smile on his face. He was as pleased as punch. He explained that sorcerers see infant human beings as strange, luminous balls of energy covered from the top to the bottom with a glowing coat something like a plastic cover that is adjusted tightly over their cocoon of energy. He said that that glowing coat of awareness was what the predators consumed, and that when a human being reached adulthood, all that was left of that glowing coat of awareness was a narrow fringe that went from the ground to the top of the toes. That fringe permitted mankind to continue living, but only barely. As if I were in a dream, I heard don Juan explaining that, to his knowledge, man was the only species that had the glowing coat of awareness outside that luminous cocoon. Therefore, he became easy prey for an awareness of a different order; such as the heavy awareness of the predator.

He then made the most damaging statement he had made so far. He said that this narrow fringe of awareness was the epicenter of self-reflection where man was irremediably caught. By playing on our self-reflection, which is the only point of awareness left to us, the predators create flares of awareness that they proceed to consume in a ruthless, predatory fashion. They give us inane problems that force those flares of awareness to rise, and in this manner they keep us alive in order for them to be fed with the energetic flare of our pseudo-concerns. There must have been something in what don Juan was saying which was so devastating to me that at that point I actually got sick to my stomach.

After a moment’s pause long enough for me to recover, I asked don Juan, “But why is it that the sorcerers of ancient Mexico and all sorcerers today, although they see the predators, don’t do anything about it?”

“How can you ask your fellow men to go through those rigors of discipline? They’ll laugh and make fun of you; and the more aggressive ones will beat the # out of you… and not so much because they don’t believe it. Down in the depths of every human being, there is an ancestral, visceral knowledge about the predators’ existence.”

My analytical mind swung back and forth like a yo-yo. It left me and came back, and left me and came back again. Whatever don Juan was proposing was preposterous, incredible. At the same time, it was a most reasonable thing; so simple. It explained every kind of human contradiction I could think of. But how could one have taken all this seriously?

Don Juan was pushing me into the path of an avalanche that would take me down forever. I felt another wave of a threatening sensation. The wave didn’t stem from me, yet it was attached to me. Don Juan was doing something to me, mysteriously positive and terribly negative at the same time. I sensed it as an attempt to cut a thin film that seemed to be glued to me. His eyes were fixed on mine in an unblinking stare. He moved his eyes away, and began to talk without looking at me anymore.

“There’s nothing that you and I can do about it,” don Juan said in a grave, sad voice. “All we can do is discipline ourselves to the point where they will not touch us."

“Whenever doubts plague you to a dangerous point,” he said, “do something pragmatic about it. Turn off the light. Pierce the darkness; find out what you can see.” He got up to turn off the lights. I stopped him. “No, no, don Juan,” I said, “don’t turn off the lights. I’m doing okay.”

What I felt then was a most unusual, for me, fear of the darkness. The mere thought of it made me pant. I definitely knew something viscerally, but I wouldn’t dare touch it, or bring it to the surface, not in a million years!

“You saw the fleeting shadows against the trees,” don Juan said, sitting back against his chair. “That’s pretty good. I’d like you to see them inside this room. You’re not seeing anything. You’re just merely catching fleeting images. You have enough energy for that.”

I feared that don Juan would get up anyway and turn off the lights, which he did. Two seconds later, I was screaming my head off. Not only did I catch a glimpse of those fleeting images, I heard them buzzing by my ears. Don Juan doubled up with laughter as he turned on the lights.

“What a temperamental fellow!” he said. “A total disbeliever, on the one hand; and a total pragmatist on the other. You must arrange this internal fight, otherwise you’re going to swell up like a big toad and burst.”

Don Juan kept on pushing his barb deeper and deeper into me. “The sorcerers of ancient Mexico,” he said, “saw the predator. They called it the flyer because it leaps through the air. It is not a pretty sight. It is a big shadow, impenetrably dark, a black shadow that jumps through the air. Then, it lands flat on the ground.

“The sorcerers of ancient Mexico were quite ill at ease with the idea of when it made its appearance on Earth. They reasoned that man must have been a complete being at one point, with stupendous insights and feats of awareness that are mythological legends nowadays. And then everything seems to disappear, and we have now a sedated man.”

I wanted to get angry and call him a paranoiac, but somehow the righteousness that was usually just underneath the surface of my being wasn’t there. Something in me was beyond the point of asking myself my favorite question: What if all that he said is true? At the moment he was talking to me that night, in my heart of hearts, I felt that all of what he was saying was true, but at the same time and with equal force, I felt that all that he was saying was absurdity itself.

“What are you saying, don Juan?” I asked feebly. My throat was constricted. I could hardly breathe.

“What I’m saying is that what we have against us is not a simple predator. It is very smart and organized. It follows a methodical system to render us useless. Man, the magical being that he is destined to be, is no longer magical. He’s an average piece of meat. There are no more dreams for man but the dreams of an animal who is being raised to become a piece of meat: trite, conventional, imbecilic.”

Don Juan’s words were eliciting a strange, bodily reaction in me comparable to the sensation of nausea. It was as if I were going to get sick to my stomach again. But the nausea was coming from the bottom of my being, from the marrow of my bones. I convulsed involuntarily. Don Juan shook me by the shoulders forcefully. I felt my neck wobbling back and forth under the impact of his grip. The maneuver calmed me down at once. I felt more in control.

This predator,” don Juan said, “which, of course, is an inorganic being, is not altogether invisible to us as other inorganic beings are. I think as children we do see it, but we decide it’s so horrific that we don’t want to think about it. Children, of course, could insist on focusing on the sight, but everybody else around them dissuades them from doing so. The only alternative left for mankind is discipline. Discipline is the only deterrent. But by discipline I don’t mean harsh routines. I don’t mean waking up every morning at five-thirty and throwing cold water on yourself until you’re blue. Sorcerers understand discipline as the capacity to face with serenity odds that are not included in our expectations. For sorcerers, discipline is an art; the art of facing infinity without flinching; not because they are strong and tough, but because they are filled with awe.”

“In what way would the sorcerers’ discipline be a deterrent to the flyers?” I asked.

Don Juan scrutinized my face as if to discover any signs of my disbelief. He said,”Sorcerers say that discipline makes the glowing coat of awareness unpalatable to the flyer. The result is that the predators become bewildered. An inedible glowing coat of awareness is not part of their cognition, I suppose. After being bewildered, they don’t have any recourse other than refraining from continuing their nefarious task. If the predators don’t eat our glowing coat of awareness for a while, it will keep on growing.

“Simplifying this matter to the extreme, I can say that sorcerers, by means of their discipline, push the predators away long enough to allow their glowing coat of awareness to grow beyond the level of the toes. Once it goes beyond the level of the toes, it grows back to its natural size. The sorcerers of ancient Mexico used to say that the glowing coat of awareness is like a tree. If it is not pruned, it grows to its natural size and volume. As awareness reaches levels higher than the toes, tremendous maneuvers of perception become a matter of course.

“The grand trick of those sorcerers of ancient times was to burden the flyers’ mind with discipline. Sorcerers found out that if they taxed the flyers’ mind with inner silence, the foreign installation would flee, and give any one of the practitioners involved in this maneuver the total certainty of the mind’s foreign origin. The [alien mind control of these creatures] comes back, I assure you, but not as strong; and a process begins in which the fleeing of the flyers’ mind becomes routine until one day it flees permanently.

“That’s the day when you have to rely on your own devices which are nearly zero. A sad day indeed! There’s no one to tell you what to do. There’s no mind of foreign origin to dictate the imbecilities you’re accustomed to. My teacher, the nagual Julian, used to warn all his disciples that this was the toughest day in a sorcerer’s life for the real mind that belongs to us. The sum total of our experience after a lifetime of domination has been rendered shy, insecure, and shifty. Personally, I would say that the real battle of sorcerers begins at that moment. The rest is merely preparation.”

The mind can fabricate time and space dimensions that are simply not true. whereas the breath is always present and integrates the inside with the outside.

Try doing and not thinking. Sweeping floors or flagstones with a straw broom and weeding without gloves on are simple examples of aids available.

a reply to: sid1314

a reply to: cooperton

The mind can fabricate time and space dimensions that are simply not true. whereas the breath is always present and integrates the inside with the outside.

One can consider inside and outside to be two dimensions. Add length, width and height to give a five dimensional world. A cardboard box is a five dimensional object in this sense.

An egregore is an example here of a mental box. Cults too.

Then the term think outside the box has a logical meaning. We can shift our position from inside the box to outside the box ~ relative positioning. Then we can think unrestrained by the dogma and see the cult for what it is.

Add wheels to our cardboard box and we have a motorcar. Motion being time.

We now have a six dimensional world.

So now my question is, Is this whole world just this mind and its manifestation of its thoughts or a collective mind and all of their manifestations combined.

Perhaps... The "I AM" are eyes of the unmanifested. Everything else is one consciousness that has been segmented by egotistical desires into local consciousnesses to allow us to experience truth in dualities.

Secondly my other question is, To truly experience freedom from the mind, I know that I must stop manifesting the thoughts and no longer let them affect me or process them in anyway, and I must let them pass. But how do I completely let go. Step away from having any need for this mind.

Those are exactly the questions you need to answer for yourself. But its not one or the other. Moreso a unification into a greater consciousness of 144,000 petals.

a reply to: cooperton

I agree with the first part, but the thing about breath is that its a simple thought that we can concentrate on while the others we can let go or let them pass as we do during meditation.

a reply to: Dalamax

I don't understand the metaphor, but yes doing is the goal, thinking of it is the first step, then experiencing it brings realisation

a reply to: glend

That is the thought that troubles me the most,
As they say the "I" is also a part of the universal consciousness, then what is the "I" here interacting with. Or the theory of the One, the universal consciousness, is it also the "I" here...

a reply to: sid1314
There is a channel on YouTube titled 'The Nonduality Podcast' that has many, many talks that may help.

Here's one to get you started:

All paths lead to 'witnessing'.