The Watcher
We let go by first accessing our watcher or observer within — the place where our True Self is watching our thoughts. Our True Self knows true from false because it listens to our emotions for guidance. It grants us free will to accept false thoughts, and it releases the false thoughts when we decide they aren’t true.
In the east, seekers of enlightenment watch their minds until they can remain above them. But often they talk harshly about the body because the false thoughts they rise above remain suppressed in their bodies. The false self lives like a parasite in our body generating unwanted thoughts and conditions. If we rise above those thoughts, they continue to grow in power; the parasite eventually destroys the host.
In the west, we adore the body to the extreme and ignore our false minds. Westerners are experts at projecting unwanted thoughts on to others. Modern technology calms our minds by fixing our bodies and life experiences (effects) until the effects become too great to fix.
Initiation blended these two perspectives together into one perfect whole. Initiates watched their mind constantly. Their body was the effect of their thoughts. They found their false causal thoughts by following their emotions and letting go. If they achieved freedom, they were said to have transcended death with resurrected bodies — Temples of the Living God.
They now lived largely outside the illusion (outside beliefs) creating whatever they wanted. They’d dip into the illusion to assist people who wanted out. They were in the business of saving people, but not in the way that religion saves people. They saved people from religion.
Losing the Watcher
When I was young, I watched my mind full time. That changed as I started to accept the ideas of authority figures. I knew they were wrong because I felt it, but I wanted to avoid punishment. By the time I was twenty, I rarely watched my mind; the skill had no benefit. I started to believe that I must manage my way within the illusion; escape seemed impossible.
Later on, I discovered meditation. It was very easy for me, but it wasn’t enough. I didn’t want bliss twice a day for short periods of time. I wanted it all the time. I wanted to be in the world without it affecting me adversely. I had no desire to live in an ashram, and I looked hideous in orange. So I went back to what I loved to do as a child. I watched my mind. I was rusty and had to work my way back to my earlier level of skill. I had to remember how to discriminate and let go.
Loneliness
Living in Ecuador, for the last two months, took me back to my early twenties when I abandoned the art of watching. I remember feeling very lonely after I married. This was strange since I never felt lonely as a child even though I lived in the country with no children around. The culture and religion in Ecuador matched my husband’s family culture and religion. Loneliness isn’t about missing others; it’s about missing our True Self.
I watched my mind deliver the same thoughts I heard and believed earlier in life. My mind said no one cared about me, and I was out of place. They felt bad then; and they really felt bad now. But now I understood the role of emotions in discrimination, and I knew how to let go. The emotions I felt in my body were saying those thoughts were false. If I had been floating above my body in meditation, I wouldn’t have felt those emotions. I wouldn’t have been able to discriminate. Being connected to my body was painful since the emotions were very powerful. But it allowed me to discriminate and let go.
Once I let go, I could see the cause of the thoughts. Everyone here shares the same false self; they belong superficially — identical to my husband’s family. But their True Self feels left out — out-of-place. They fix their undercurrent of loneliness with festivals, dancing, sex, family, and traditions. They fix the effect, not the cause. I faced a trap that I’d fallen into earlier in life as my True Self also had no place in my marriage. I sacrificed it to fit in to my new family.
Loneliness is like a giant fog here in Ecuador since nearly everyone has abandoned their True Self to fit in. It wasn’t going to go away. Eventually, I let go of all the false thoughts as untrue, and loneliness became impossible because my True Self was unveiled; the emotions stopped.
Part of me wanted to fix my friends’ loneliness; I’ve come to care about them very much. This also matched my mind earlier in life because I wanted to relieve my husband’s loneliness. That caring made letting go hard; but it wasn’t true caring. The True Self doesn’t fix other people’s emotions. The suffering is meant to force us to let go. Sadly, most people don’t know they can let go.
Throughout history, initiation was an elite privilege. Lower classes were slaves — too busy wiping the asses of the elite to escape. Royalty, like most gurus of the east, learned to rise above their unwanted false thoughts by projecting them out on to inferior others. This became The Big Secret. But it’s a false-self technique. Identifying with the spiritual, positive, superior, winning, and good thoughts can trick others into playing the role they don’t want to play for awhile. But eventually, they won’t be able to hide their negative aspects under a nice-looking mask if we stop believing them and taking on their projection.
In initiation, anyone can watch their mind, anyone can feel emotions and discriminate, and anyone can let go. Initiation is true divine justice because anyone can gain eternal FREEDOM. And when we let it all go, we simply are the watcher.
